WHMIS Training Online: Is it Your Best WHMIS Training Option?

WHMIS Training Online is among the most popular methods that Canadian workers use to obtain a valid WHMIS certificate. Whether it’s an individual worker looking to quickly get their WHMIS certificate or a company wishing to train their entire workforce, WHMIS training online offers many benefits.

Online training, however, may not be for everyone. Before jumping right in and choosing to take your WHMIS training online or providing it to your workers, it’s helpful to do some research. This can assist in determining if WHMIS training online is the best approach for your scenario, as well as help you to determine the best provider.

What is WHMIS Training Online?

WHMIS Certification Training is broken down into two parts. General WHMIS Training (commonly referred to as WHMIS education or generic WHMIS training) and Workplace Specific Training (Often called site-specific training). While workplace specific training may not be required in some circumstances, in most Canadian workplaces, all workers will require general WHMIS training. Moreover, while workplace specific training cannot effectively be facilitated outside of the workplace, general training can be provided through various methods.

WHMIS training online is simply general WHMIS training that is deployed through computer-based learning methods, usually via the internet. Most WHMIS training online contains text, narration, video, interactive features, and knowledge evaluations such as quizzes, exams, and surveys.

Online Training Pros and Cons

As with any method, taking or providing WHMIS certification online can have specific pros and cons. No single method of training could possibly work for every possible scenario. It’s important to consider the pros and cons of each WHMIS training method to determine what’s best for your scenario.

Here are some of the pros and cons of taking WHMIS training online or providing WHMIS training online to your workers.

WHMIS Training Online Pros

Flexibility and Convenience

WHMIS Training Online offers a tremendous amount of flexibility and convenience. Learners can take the WHMIS training online from any location at the time that’s most convenient for them or their company.

They also have the flexibility to take the training at their own pace, stopping and resuming as required.

Leading WHMIS providers also ensure that their courses can easily be taken on mobile devices. This further increases the flexibility and convenience for those taking the WHMIS training.

Time-Savings and Efficiency

WHMIS training online can take much less time to complete than traditional training methods. For learners, this means there’s a higher chance of remaining motivated throughout the training. For employers, this means eliminating or significantly reducing operational delays.

Lower Costs than Traditional Training Methods

Traditional WHMIS training methods such as instructor-class classroom training can be expensive. In addition to costly third-party instructors and expensive training materials, indirect costs such as those that result from lost productivity can skyrocket. WHMIS training online eliminates much of the costs associated with these traditional methods without sacrificing effectiveness.

Low Stress

For some learners, traditional training methods can be very stressful. WHMIS training online allows participants who are shy or reserved to learn without any social phobia. Online training can be completed in the best environment that will help the learner perform at their best. Moreover, learners are free to choose a place that is quiet and free from distraction.

Consistency

Communicating the right message is important. Ensuring that it gets delivered the same way every time is also very important. Traditional WHMIS training methods that require an instructor to present content can easily become inconsistent, especially across multiple locations. Even the best instructors can deliver details a little differently from day to day and class to class.

WHMIS training online from a reputable provider is always consistent. Learners get the exact same standards-compliant message every time.

Simplified Administration for Employers

Perhaps the greatest benefits of WHMIS training online is for Canadian employers. Training program facilitation can be daunting. Scheduling workers for classroom-based sessions, shutting down operations, paying for costly instructors, filing training records, and being pulled away from other tasks can all be eliminated through the use of online WHMIS training.

Companies who provide their workers with WHMIS training online typically have fewer gaps in their training programs and reap the benefits of improved productivity. Managers who are in charge of training have much more time to focus on other proactive measures since they no longer have to worry about scheduling, chasing workers to complete their training or filing vast amounts of training records.

WHMIS Training Online Cons

Reduced Ability to Interact with Instructor and Peers

One of the downfalls of WHMIS training online is the reduced ability to instantly interact with an instructor and/or class participants. Many online providers do offer the ability to interact with instructors in various formats, however, the responses are usually not as quick as those that would be received in classroom training.

Selecting a Provider

WHMIS training online is quickly becoming one of the most popular methods for getting WHMIS certified or providing WHMIS training to workers. For this reason, there are many new online WHMIS providers regularly popping up online. One of the downfalls of WHMIS training online is the difficulty in choosing from these providers.

When deciding to take WHMIS training online or provide to your workers through this method, ensure that you choose a reputable provider. To assist, we’ve put together a list of characteristics to look for when selecting an online WHMIS training provider.

What to Look for in WHMIS Training Online Solutions

Not all WHMIS Training online is the same. Some differences between providers and training options are subtle, while others are very significant.

Regardless of whether you’re an individual looking for a WHMIS Training online option or an employer looking to provide WHMIS training to your workers, there are several things you need to consider.

Here are a few important factors that must be considered when looking to take or provide WHMIS Training online.

Compliance with Current Standards

This characteristic is possibly the most important. Any WHMIS training online that you’re considering taking or providing to your workers must be compliant. This is simply non-negotiable and should be the first thing to look for. Compliant, up-to-date training will ensure that you or your workers have the information required to be safe while working with hazardous products. It also ensures that you’re meeting your legislative requirements.

WHMIS training that is compliant with the standards must include information from both the old WHMIS 1988 and the new WHMIS 2015. Information on only one of the systems is not sufficient. This is because there is currently a transition period where elements from both systems can be found in Canadian workplaces. Workers must have information on both systems to ensure their safety.

Effectiveness

Any WHMIS training that’s under your consideration should be effective. This means that not only should it contain all required information, but it should also present that information in a clear and effective way. Online WHMIS courses should be developed using established instruction design principals, and further, ensure that learners can easily retain the required information.

Some of the most effective online WHMIS training contains interactivity that gives learners the opportunity to make decisions and experience the consequences of those decisions immediately. They contain mechanisms to provide actionable feedback throughout the duration of the training. This results in re-enforced learning, improved knowledge retention, and improved learner satisfaction.

Efficiency

Not only should WHMIS training online be effective, it should also be efficient.

Learners must be able to learn the required content and demonstrate their competence in a reasonable amount of time. Online learning can typically be completed in less time than traditional methods. This means that WHMIS training that is completed online should not be drawn out and longer than necessary. There should be no filler content just for the sake of making a course longer.

Modern

Do you remember the gory safety videos from the 70’s and 80’s? While they were sometimes extremely entertaining, they didn’t really accomplish the goal of getting workers to think more about safety. It’s likely that they actually had negative effects since they sometimes trivialized safety and made it seem less important.

Believe it or not, some people still show some of these WHMIS videos to this day and it’s even less effective than it was in the 80’s.

Workers are more open to training that is modern and relative to current times. The WHMIS training online that you choose to take or provide your employees with should be modern and have been updated recently.

In addition to the content being modern, the methods in which the training can be taken should also not be outdated. In today’s connected world, it’s important that WHMIS training online be accessible on mobile devices and multiple platforms.

Simplicity

If you’re looking for WHMIS training online, it’s because you don’t want to deal with the time-consuming complexities of traditional WHMIS training methods.

Any WHMIS solution that you choose should be extremely simple to take yourself and provide to your workers. After all, the goal is to get high-quality WHMIS training with a minimal amount of effort. You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to take your training or assign it to workers.

Good WHMIS Online training providers offer a super simple process all the way from purchasing training to completing it or assigning to your workers.

Production Value

Everyone can agree that watching a Youtube video with poor audio quality is nearly impossible, regardless of the video quality and content.

It’s already challenging to maintain a learner’s attention with safety training. When you introduce low-quality production standards in the form of grainy photos, blurry video, and terrible audio, it completely ruins the training experience for the learner. Any WHMIS training online that’s worthy of your selection should be intuitive, visually pleasing, have very high audio quality, and generally be of high production value.

Price and Value

Price is definitely a factor when considering a WHMIS training online solution. Perhaps more important than price is value. What exactly are you getting for your money?

Does the solution provide a printable certificate that you can print immediately and an unlimited number of times? How long do you have access to the training for? Do you get a digital badge once you’ve completed the training? Do you have to pay additional fees for retaking quizzes and exams? All of these should be considered and significantly affect the value of the solution.

Companies wanting to train their employees should also consider factors that increase the value of their investment. For example, how easy is it to facilitate and track the training? If you save several hours a week in administration, the value of the investment skyrockets. Do you get additional tools to help you facilitate workplace-specific training? This will also increase the value of your investment significantly.

Guaranteed Satisfaction

Any WHMIS training online that you intend on taking yourself or providing to your workforce should be backed by some kind of guarantee.

One of the most common types of guarantees is a risk-free, money back guarantee. The top WHMIS training providers are not afraid to offer this type of guarantee with their WHMIS products because they are very confident in the products that they provide.

Conclusion

As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, WHMIS training online is probably the most popular method that Canadian workers currently use to get their WHMIS certificate. The affordability and convenience it offers simply cannot be matched by traditional WHMIS training methods.

Whether you’re a worker looking to get WHMIS certified or an employer looking to train your workforce, WHMIS training online can provide you benefits that weren’t available just a few short years ago. Do your research, find a reputable provider, and enjoy the benefits that technology has brought to all of us:)