Online forklift course provides flexibility and cost savings

New online forklift course provides flexibility and cost savings

Forklift accidents are frequent and can be serious. DT Driver Training, in partnership with Tasman Training, has launched a new online forklift certificate course to revolutionise forklift training, improving safety and saving businesses time and money.

“Traditional forklift training has a number of disadvantages: it ties up an operator for a whole day, it’s expensive and it’s often difficult to schedule operators’ time to take the course around their commitments. If they work night shifts, the daytime courses mean they are tired and find it more difficult to learn. If it’s a classroom situation with a full day’s course, the average person’s 20-minute attention span means information can go in one ear and out the other,” said Tasman Training’s Stan Chesswas who has 30 years of hands-on experience as an operator and instructor in both New Zealand and Australia.

However, there are many advantages for online courses he adds, “There's no more travel and wasted time waiting around when sending operators out for 5 hours to an off-site course, and the course material is divided into modules that stay within the 20-minute attention span, delivering targeted training that the operator can immediately apply on the job."

Operators can take the training modules at any time, 24/7, on any device. They can repeat modules they don't understand fully and take it at their own pace. They can track their progress through the modules, and so can the company trainer or supervisor. Doing the course this way means that they can be finished in as little as 2 hours rather than 4-6 hours and this can be spread over a number of weeks.

Once they have finished the theory they are ready for the 15-minute practical assessment. While it’s possible to use an external assessor, the course has the option for companies to assess their operators internally rather than send operators out to an external course. A comprehensive practical guide is included that any experienced operator or assessor can follow when assessing operators internally, or they can use an external assessor of their choice. Once both the practical and theory sections are complete, a three-year certificate is produced.

"The Approved Code of Practice allows for this if companies have a skilled operator or a suitably qualified assessor on their team. This is safer for the company because it means they have someone on-staff who knows when an operator is doing something wrong,” said Chesswas, adding that the price of the theory component, at $89, is much cheaper than the $130-170 companies usually pay for this type of certificate renewal.

The course covers all the information required in the forklift operators’ Approved Code of Practice (ACOP), WorkSafe guidelines and the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, plus additional tips and techniques to improve operator skills.

"This is the way training is heading; it's delivered online so the trainee can learn the information at their own speed rather than everyone going at the speed of the slowest trainee in a classroom scenario," says DT Driver Training director, Darren Cottingham.

"Experienced operators will breeze through this course more quickly and will be more engaged, while newer operators will be able to absorb the knowledge at their own speed. The course is available to each operator for 12 months giving them time to refresh their knowledge if required and the questions can be translated from English into one of 103 languages," he says.

For more information or to book a demonstration, visit the website or call 021 222 0888.

DT Driver Training
www.drivertraining.co.nz
PO Box 90411
Victoria Street West
Auckland 1142

ENDS

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