Competency and Learning for Tomorrow's Process Safety Leaders

The role and benefits of online learning for academia (personal) and organizations (corporate) have increased in popularity and have demonstrated higher levels of learner effectiveness and efficiency, surpassing and antiquating in-person training programs. In this paper, a case study will examine how an online learning management system (LMS) with education structured as building blocks increases overall competency specific to a particular skill set. The success of this LMS is not limited to competency development and incremental learning. A key role begins with the LMS “content creators.” Together these concepts bring new meaning to lessons learned and cultivate a proactive, future learning environment that will advance the next generation of process safety leaders.

Introduction

Competency development and training reached new heights worldwide during the recent COVID-19 pandemic as organizations were forced to come to a halt. Business and life as we knew it changed almost overnight. This change also shifted in-person learning and training online. The demand for online learning OLEs – online learning environments – became an everyday reality. Millions of workers and learners were engaged in remote or virtual learning delivered by video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, MS Teams, WebEx, or web-based eLearning applications or software. eLearning dominated due to the ease of delivery and management made possible by the learning management system, or LMS, technology. The role and benefits of eLearning demonstrated higher levels of learner effectiveness and efficiency, surpassing and antiquating in-person training programs, yielding confidence, and setting the stage for a “new normal”. The lasting impact of this shift and effectiveness of online learning is summarized well by The World Economic Forum: “Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and take less time, meaning the changes coronavirus have caused might be here to stay.”

Transforming workplace safety into process safety competency is critical to the processing industry as numerous historical catastrophes have been linked to a lack of competency. Proficient development, evaluation, and management of core competencies are central to enriching process safety leadership and preventing future incidents. A case study using an LMS developed for the process safety industry examines how education structured as building blocks increases overall competency specific to a particular skill set. The success of this LMS is not limited to competency development and incremental learning. A key component begins with the LMS “content creators.” Together these concepts bring new meaning to lessons learned and cultivate a proactive, future learning environment from which the next generation of process safety leaders will evolve.