Competency+Based+Train+Psa-Tdg-1

Hey everybody , Jim Powell here .

And I just wanted to give you a quick overview on a seminar that I attended recently in Brussels that was put on by Ayata on the subject of competency based training and assessment .

Now , I know a lot of you have heard the term C BT or C BT A and it's been a big deal .

So basically in the IKEA regulations and now in the AAA guidelines , they talk about competency based training for those of us here in the United States .

It's not really anything new because our function specific training has always been analogous to competency based training .

I mean , there's basically four types of training that everybody has to do , which is general awareness or Familiarization , training , safety training , security awareness training , and then function specific training .

So it's not much of a change , but you're likely to hear a lot about it , especially since AAA in their DGR their dangerous goods regulations .

In section 1.5 took out the training table that they had , that showed the various categories of jobs with the training requirements .

So for a lot of people that was kind of a a shocking thing to see that table that's been there for 20 years finally disappear .

Well , I was kind of surprised to learn in the seminar that while that table has disappeared , there's another table in what used to be known as appendix .

H talking about well-defined job functions .

So even though they got rid of category six in the table , we've always known as 1.5 there's now a well defined job function for something that's pretty much the same thing as category six .

So what difference does C BT A make ?

And what difference , you know , what was accomplished by this , this seminar ?

Well , the idea behind Ayata putting on the C BT A seminar is for people around the world to understand that the competency training needs to be in relation not to the job title of the employee , but the actual job function .

And like I said , here in the US , we've pretty much always had it this way , but internationally , it's not , it's not the same .

So Ayata has basically said that for each job function , you have to determine the competency elements that are required for that particular job that the person is performing and the skill level at which they need to perform .

And a lot of time is spent um showing uh Bloom's taxonomy , for example , which shows , you know , lower order thinking skills to higher order thinking skills and helps frame the expectations for the employee as to what they're going to get out of the training .

So at the end of the day , it was a useful session .

But there's still a lot of questions .

For example , the idea behind competency based training is that every employer .

So think about the United States with hundreds of thousands of different employers has to basically lay out a training plan for every single employee and for every single function of every single employee , identifying the competency elements that are required for their DG job functions and the skill levels for that .

And the competency assessment methods to ensure that the person is fully competent when the training is done and at periodic intervals after that , so it's a pretty tall order and it's a lot to expect an employer who may not know very much about dangerous goods to begin with um to be able to take on this particular task .

And that's why there are consulting companies like ours and other people that are getting this training so that we can help the employers navigate these requirements .

And again , for us , we're in a good position because in the United States , we've always had this kind of environment .

There's just a little bit more clarification and codification in the tables and things that are used as resources .

It was a good group of people .

It was held in February at Aviato Academy in Brussels .

I think there were about 18 people in the class dangerous goods instructors .

They were all top notch people , the instructor , Ajay Pande from uh Geneva from Ayata did a spectacular job .

He really set a good example for what a qualified DG instructor does and how they act and how they operate during class .

It was a lot of material to cover in five days .

And one of the things that I should let you know about is that Ayata has removed the entire appendix H from the back of the DGR and they are now going to be selling .

Well , I don't know if they're going to be selling or giving away , but there's now a separate book that's available from Aya's website specifically detailing the competency based training requirements .

So whether that continues to be free next year , uh We really have no idea on that .

So we encourage you to reach out to us if you have questions on competency based training .

Uh We do have a lot of information .

We have some white papers and we have some tools that may be helpful for you .

So thanks very much and we look forward to hearing from you .