I want to talk about levels of training. I am not going to go into an Instructional Design model/framework, but more stay focused on the purpose of training in the quality system. I am also going to try to discuss training in terms that will make sense to folks who mostly dwell in a verification/validation mindset. So, all my professional learning developer friends please be gentle.

Categories of Training

There are three levels of training (lots of subdivides) that can be viewed as a risk based approach

Awareness Training

This can be barely considered training. Awareness training conveys the subject matter to an audience with the goal of making the audience aware of the content of the communication. It is either informational or actionable. At best, just a ”tell” activity.

Read-and-understand fits in this bucket.

Facilitated Training

Facilitated training strives to improve the workplace proficiency and is hopefully based on some real adult learning principles. There are a lot of delivery modalities that are usually broken into two big buckets of eLearning and classroom delivery. It always has an assessment component to ensure the training had the desired impact. Usually a “tell, show” model with limited “do”.

Employee Qualification

On the job, hands on training that confirms the individual can do the work by independently performing the tasks while being monitored and assessed by the trainer. Usually follows a “tell, show, do, follow-up” model.

The Level of Training is Risk Based

The level of training should be driven by the criticality of the process/procedure/task. I recommend several questions driving this:

• The complexity knowledge or skills needed to execute the changed process?
• How complicated/complex is the process/procedure/task?
• Criticality of Process and risk of performance error? What is the difficulty in detecting errors?
• What is the identified audience (e.g., location, size, department, single site vs. multiple sites)?
• Is the goal to change workers conditioned behavior?

The Personnel Qualification Model

Qualification means fitness for some purpose, shown by meeting necessary conditions or qualifying criteria. This applies as much to our people as it does to our equipment, and we can break this own with the three phases of IQ/OQ/PQ:

• Personnel IQ is provides objective evidence that the trainee has the requisite education and experience for the process/procedure/task.
• Personnel OQ is proves that the trainee can function in the training situation (event) in an appropriate fashion and performance is within the control limits set by the process/procedure/task. It proves that the trainee can perform the task correctly and independently.
• Personnel PQ demonstrates the acceptable performance during representative operational conditions. The trainee’s performance consistently produces results that meet the standards set by the process/procedure/task.

Once the process of employee qualification I successfully completed, the employee is qualified and stays so unless and until they become disqualified or the process/procedure/task changes significantly enough to require requalification.

Disqualification and requalification

There should be a process for disqualification, whether from extended absences, job changes or a detrimental trend in performance such as serious or repeated deviations.