EHS Training Solutions Now and in the Future
Marc Juaire
August 21, 2018
Joy Lindsay, Vice President of Human Resources at LDI, kicked off the discussion with an in-depth look at leadership within organizations. What do CEOs of leading companies worry about? Is leadership ready to deliver? With the realization that leadership is a critical ingredient in the retention of employees and success of an organization, she shared the three pinnacles of focus for LDI: authenticity, innovation, and management of change.
Continuing on this discussion, Sue Roether, Learning & Development Specialist at LDI, presented on Leadership Development at LDI. Sue began by asking the group, "What was your most significant leadership development opportunity?" Roundtable responses included stretch roles, switch roles, project management, managing up, and managing peers of different generations.
Currently there are four generations in the workplace: Traditionalists, Baby Boombers, Gen-X's, and Millennials. Each of these four groups has a unique background and contrasting learning styles that best suit their development. LDI has developed diverse training program to reach out to all of their employees and prospective leaders. These strategies include targeted development, guide-on-the-side, and 70/20/10 training (on the job, mentors, and formal).
To further investigate effectiveness of on-boarding and performance within an organization, Pete Schwalbach, Senior Project Manager at Antea Group, presented on Culture Assessment: Accelerating the Journey to Excellence. When measuring a company's culture, there are three integral elements: structure, framework, and the intangibles. Intangibles include beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, perception, motivation, and values. Is your company's culture working toward your performance?
Workplace culture assessments and surveys can play an important role in answering this question. The process for completing surveys includes: Plan & Assess, Review & Analyze, and Set Strategy & Road Map. For culture assessments to be a success, the organization must be committed to respond to the results of the survey. The culture surveys can assist in determining if the company's culture working for or against you. Take stock and make a game plan.
Organization and record keeping of complex EHS training programs can be a time consuming and cumbersome endeavor. Peter Blackstad, President/CEO of Classroom Manager.NET led a discussion on Training Management Systems. Spreadsheet tracking and inefficient training management systems can cause hours of redundant work within a company. Efficient training management systems are flexible and administrators can simply add new users, records, and new training objectives.
Following the speakers, the roundtable discussions circled back to the theme of leadership. Questions discussed within the group included:
- How do we ensure that we have effective knowledge transfer for adult learning?
- How do we deal with a multi-national workforce relative to training, context, delivery, language barriers and cultural norms?
- How do we develop leaders?
For those of you who work in other regions of the country, how are you answering these questions for your organizations? Do you have any training tools or talent management programs that would make good examples for us?
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About the Author
Marc Juaire
Liberty Diversified International
Marc Juaire is the Corporate Director of Environmental, Health, and Safety for Liberty Diversified International in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mr. Juaire has 24 years of experience as an environmental, health and safety (EHS) professional including air permitting, hazardous waste management, EHS auditing, incident investigations, safe work practices, emergency planning and response, process safety management, and EHS training. Currently, Mr. Juaire is responsible for creating the strategic direction for EHS and developing and implementing EHS standards, policies, and programs for the LDI family of companies.
Prior to joining LDI, Mr. Juaire spent 11 years as a Process Safety Management and EHS Manager working for two chemical companies and nine years as an Environmental Consultant. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a MBA from Carlson School of Management. Mr. Juaire is also registered as a Certified Process Safety Auditor with the Board of Environmental, Health, and Safety Auditor Certifications.
Prior to joining LDI, Mr. Juaire spent 11 years as a Process Safety Management and EHS Manager working for two chemical companies and nine years as an Environmental Consultant. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota and a MBA from Carlson School of Management. Mr. Juaire is also registered as a Certified Process Safety Auditor with the Board of Environmental, Health, and Safety Auditor Certifications.