Some People Excel At Lift Safety And Some Don’t – Which One Are You?

We see it all the time. The blank stare from supervisors and hands when they are told of a particular training/qualification requirement for someone involve in a lifting operation.  I get it, many decades ago my introduction to the Lift Industry was when the boss handed me keys to a fork-lift (a “powered industrial truck” in OSHA parlance) and told me what to move.  No training, no qualification . . . “move that stuff.”  

The world has changed.

And more to the point, regulatory requirements have changed.  If you care about the safety and welfare of employees, you realize that those changes are a good thing.  Many years ago, I did a bit of rappelling training for the Army.  Part of my safety briefing was “any activity involving height or motion can cause injury or death.”  Lift operations involve both height and motion, and what we are lifting is plenty heavy enough that you don’t want it to drop on anyone.  So, I would suggest that lifting operations, like working in a sour gas environment, are inherently dangerous.

3 Levels of Training

Although training models can differ, what we do at Crawford Custom Consulting (CCC) is fairly common.  We do three levels of training.  

1.) The most basic is “Safety Awareness Training”.  This training is intended to help employees be aware of hazards in their work environment and teach them how to avoid being injured by those hazards.  It doesn’t authorize an employee to operate any piece of machinery or perform any specified task.  Its intent is to help the employee work more safely in their job.  

2.) Qualified training is training targeted at meeting minimum OSHA regulatory requirements for an employee so that he or she may operate a given piece of machinery or perform a given task.  The qualified training candidate must complete a written or verbal test as well as a practical examination.  Unlike the experience I wrote about above, forklifts would be an example of equipment that should only be operated by a qualified operator.  In order to comply with regulations, an individual must complete a class and test on the material for either a Telescopic Fork Lift (“telehandler”) or an Industrial Fork Lift (vertical mast) and then complete a practical examination that demonstration operational competence the machine type that the candidate seeks qualification for.  

At Crawford Custom Consulting, we will issue qualified operator cards to candidates who successfully complete the training.  Though we certainly will not issue any card to and individual who we do not believe is qualified, we will retrain and retest in an effort to promote every candidate’s success.  

3.) Certified training prepares the candidate to sit for tests, that if passed, lead to national certification.  Crawford Custom Consulting is affiliated with the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators ( NCCCO https://www.nccco.org ). After taking classes to prepare the candidate for testing, written examinations are administered by an NCCCO proctor and the test sheets are sent to be scored.  For most specialties, a separate practical examination is required, most often administered by a practical examiner from CCC, with the results also being sent away for scoring.     

What level of training / qualification / certification do employees need?  

Well, it depends.  If an employee doesn’t require the ability to operate a machine (such as a mobile crane) or provide a specific service (such as serving as a Signal Person for a mobile crane operator), awareness training that will help the employee work more safely around that equipment or in that job situation may be appropriate.  

If the employee does require the ability to operate a machine or provide a specific service, then at minimum OSHA qualified training is required.  Qualified Training may be sufficient for some work circumstances and machines like, Fork-lifts and Mobile Elevated Work Platforms (“scissor lifts” and “boom lifts”) used by maintenance personnel.  For other machines and work circumstances, such as mobile cranes with a capacity of more than one ton, working in construction, certification through a nationally recognized source such as NCCCO is required.  

How can an employer know what level of training/qualification /certification is required?  

The simple answer is what OSHA requires.  As navigating OSHA regulations is not always “simple”, so contacting a training provider like Crawford Custom Consulting for help wading through the requirements may prove very useful.  Any organization can determine, of course, that based on work conditions or other factors, higher levels of certifications than OSHA minimum mandates may be in order.  Also, many organizations require specific training and certification requirements beyond OSHA minimum and their vendors obviously must comply.

But the answer to questions about how much training is needed are out there.  But they need to be asked.  “We didn’t know that was required” is never a good answer.  Because the legal question is always “did you know or should you have known.”  The answer regarding knowing the requirements to keep workers safe is always “Yes, you should have known.”

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