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Steven F. Kane, CSP, PE
Chairman, Z490 Committee
June 12, 2002
Nashville, TN
Introduction and Background
The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) is the oldest and largest society of safety professionals in the world. Founded in 1911, ASSE represents over 30,000 dedicated safety professionals. ASSE is the secretariat of eight (8) American National Standards Committees, which were just reaccredited with high marks, which makes the Society the largest holder of safety/health standards projects. This involvement goes back to 1921 with the secretariat of A14 Ladder Standards, which makes ASSE an ANSI charter secretariat. In addition, we have over forty (40) safety professionals/ASSE representatives serving on various ANSI, NFPA, ASME, and ASTM committees.
The charter of the American National Standards Committee, Z490 Criteria for Best Practices in Safety, Health and Environmental Training, was accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) on April 1, 1998. The standard itself was approved by ANSI on July 2, 2001, and it grew out of the recognized need for improvement in safety, health, and environmental training. Quality training is required to ensure that workers and safety, health, and environmental professionals have the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to protect themselves and others in the workplace. Both the public and private sector have continued to wrestle with training issues on both an internal and external basis for many years. This includes everything from training requirements for specific standards to the potential accreditation of specific training programs.
Four (4) years ago, April, 1996, ASSE conducted focus group meetings across the country...two (2) in Houston, two (2) in Chicago, two (2) in Gaithersburg, MD, involving over a hundred training experts from business, industry, professional societies, trade associations, training providers, and both large and small operations. The purpose of the meetings was to learn if ASSE should venture into accreditation of training organizations programs as well as ascertaining the market interest in procuring such accreditation. The Society hired an organization expert in facilitating these accreditation efforts. After much analysis, further discussion, even including the consultant, and more debate, the consensus was for ASSE to pursue an American National Standards training standards project.
The rationale ASSE offered ANSI in filing the application for establishing the project was that these safety, health, and environmental training standards would improve areas of competence, quality and effectiveness. The objective is to obtain standards of quality, which ensures that SH&E training providers meet such standards. The standards of Best Practice, now called Accepted Practice, can help employers and consumers of training services select quality safety and health training materials, instructors, and other program components. Once established, these standards can be used to audit, monitor, evaluate, analyze, etc. national, industry-wide training of large and small training service providers as well as for corporations and government entities seeking third-party review of their employee training activities.
Adding weight to this rationale was the approval of the ANS Z390.1-1995 (R- standard, Accepted Practices for H2S Training, where industry demonstrated its support for such training criteria. This validation presented convincing testimony to show that affected parties/interest groups would support these types of standards development. This translated to a committee whose membership you have just seen, which operates under ANSI rules and procedures.
Objectives of the Standard
A review of the foreword and explanatory sections clearly indicates that the ANSI accredited Z490 Committee has taken the position that safety, health, and environmental training is an important element of an effective and efficient overall safety, health, and environmental program. Historically, safety, health, and environmental training has been addressed by only a few regulations with limited scope, such as asbestos, hazard communication, and stormwater management. The regulations usually specify the technical requirements to be addressed in a training course, but do not stipulate how to adequately design, develop, deliver, and evaluate training. This Standard covers all facets of training, including training development, delivery, evaluation, and management of training and training programs. The Standard is intended and can apply to a broad range of training and training programs.
Industry employers and federal/state public policy leaders may use this Standard to assess the services of external training providers, for auditing, or to improve their own corporate training programs. Training providers may use the standard to assess and improve their training services. This standard may also be used as a basis for development and management of training and training programs, with the annexes and references providing additional information and detail. Some governmental regulations specify mandatory requirements for various safety, health, and environmental training. Likewise, the training program may be embedded in a larger safety, human resources, or other organizational structure. As a broad-based voluntary consensus standard, this document complements the regulations and organizational policies. However, it is important to note that compliance with this standard does not assure compliance with governmental regulations or organizational policies, or vice versa.
Of key importance is the fact that this standard provides a 30,000 foot view of safety, health, and environmental training. One of the issues brought up during committee debate was the Z490 standard is similar to many training standards. The view has been raised that it really does not have direct impact on specific applications of safety, health, and environmental training. Before going any further it is important to point again that the broad applications of the standard are designed that way by intent. It is not the intention of the Z490 Committee to attempt to address every aspect of safety, health, and environmental training in one comprehensive document. Such an approach would not be effective and would be a disservice to the key objectives we are trying to achieve.
Our hope is that with this standard as a basic guideline, additional projects will provide training standards on specific applications. For example, the ANSI accredited Z359 Committee, Safety Requirements for Personal Fall Arrest Systems, Subsystems, and Components, is considering launching a project on training for fall protection systems in general industry. Effective training for fall protection is an issue the Z359 committee, the private sector, and government agencies such as OSHA continue to wrestle with. The possibility is there for the Z359 Committee to write a standard, which cites the Z490 standard, but can then specifically address the technical aspects of fall protection training. Such a process will empower more effective and efficient standards to be written for specific safety, health, and environmental training applications. Another existing example is the ANSI Z390 standard, Accepted Practices for Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S) Safety Training Programs. When the standard is revised during the next reaffirmation process, the Z390 Committee will be able to cite the Z490 Standard as a general guideline and then cite the technical specifics of H2S training.
Contents of the Standard
Point 1 means it is the first standard in the project series and, after .1, the year of approval. So it is titled ANSI Z490.1-2001 Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health, and Environmental Training. The words in the title capture the key words in the subject matter of the standard and also describe the standard in a shorthand fashion.
Section #1
The first section encompasses the Scope, Purpose, and Application sections of the standard. These stipulations are crucial to a voluntary national consensus standard since it establishes the extent and limitations of the standard. This includes:
Section #2
The second section contains definitions addressing safety, health, and environmental training. These definitions were drawn from either existing materials or arrived at via consensus of the committee.
Section #3
The third section addresses training program administration and management. The committee members believe this is an important part of the standard since training programs are most effective and efficient when managed under a well-defined and organized administrative system. Such a system is designed to assure that training is in an integrated program, rather than a series of non-related training events.
Section #4
This section addresses training development and specifically provides criteria for training that will improve the occupational safety, health, or environmental knowledge, skills, or abilities used by the trainees in the performance of their jobs. This includes a needs assessment, learning objectives and prerequisites, course design, evaluation strategy, and commitment to continuous improvement
Section #5
Section #5 addresses training delivery. The purpose of this section is to describe acceptable criteria for safety, health, and environmental trainers, and to describe training material delivery requirements. This includes trainer criteria, training delivery, and feedback and communication.
Section #6
Section #6 addresses training evaluation. Training evaluation tools may measure trainee, trainer, training event, or training program performance. The standard provides guidance on evaluation approaches, and commitment to continuous improvement
Section #7
This section on documentation and record keeping generated significant discussion, as our intent is to provide guidance on a viable documentation and recordkeeping system that would maintain needed information while not creating a burdensome process. Certain regulations already require specific records to be kept for proof of completion of required training. Organizations also may desire to keep additional records to demonstrate their training efforts for control of potential liability issues.
The finals sections of the standard are informative annexes, which include:
Annex A - References
Annex B - Training Course Development Guidelines
Annex C - Training Delivery
Conclusion
For the first time, a general standard for safety, health and environmental training has been developed which will enable safety professionals to follow consistent training criteria applying to both the public and private sectors. Our hope is that the Z490.1 standard will function as a basic body of knowledge to train employees and compliance safety health officers, assist safety, health and environmental professionals in initiating successful cutting-edge programs, and provide a benchmark for employers to evaluate in-house and contracted training. The standard was developed from taking elements of accepted practices in the training industry and combining them with accepted practices from the safety, health and environmental fields. The result is a standard that provides a model of training that is transferable to every industry from material handling to construction. The standard's purpose is to serve as a benchmark for companies and government agencies in evaluating their training programs for new and current employees. The result will hopefully be lower number of injuries, illnesses, and fatalities through enhanced SH&E training programs.
Steven F. Kane, CSP, PE
Chairman, Z490 Committee