New challenges for training in Safety and Health at workEva Iglesias Guzmán. Coordinator of the academic area of Occupational Risk Prevention and Safety and professor of the Master's Degree in Occupational Risk Prevention, Excellence, Environment and RC .
The Spanish Strategy for Safety and Health at Work 2015-2020 states that, in terms of training in occupational risk prevention, much progress has been made in recent years , with a direct impact on the greater number of trained workers and the increased awareness of society regarding occupational accidents and diseases.
However, much remains to be done to integrate training in the field of primary, secondary and high school education and in those university courses in which professionals can develop skills related to health student data and safety once they graduate. Due to this, mandatory qualifications for Intermediate Level functions were regulated (through the Higher Vocational Training qualification), and the training competence of Higher Level Technicians at the University , taking an Official Master's Degree (approved by ANECA , National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation ).
Despite these efforts, there is still a need to promote the integration of occupational risk prevention training into the national education system (primary, secondary, high school, university courses, vocational training courses and official master's degrees), to update and adapt content , both in the educational and work-related fields , and to promote the training of groups that require specific knowledge in occupational risk prevention in order to properly carry out their activities (prevention delegates, designated workers, occupational risk prevention managers, etc.). Without forgetting that it must be ensured that the training provided in the different academic and professional fields has the necessary quality and is practical and applied to the daily realities of workers.
In this sense, today's Health and Safety Managers are a reflection of the reality of organizations. They have had to apply the preventive approach of their DNA, and they have had to know how to transmit it throughout the entire business hierarchy, internalizing the important role they play in protecting the health of workers. They have also been able to convince employers who believed that prevention is a cost (how many of us have faced this type of argument from those responsible for organizations?), when in fact it has been proven that the serious cost is that of not preventing . For these situations, they have counted on their knowledge and accumulated professional experience as a fundamental tool, but it has always been based on training, education and competencies .
In this sense, there has been a huge amount of progress in recent years, and health and safety training uses ICT-related tools, with the support of the eLearning, blended eLearning, etc. methodology. And the latest educational developments, with very interesting results, such as Gamification or “learning by playing” in a real context of organizations.
These new training methodologies will undoubtedly help workers who already know their risks (in recent years there has been a lot of progress in information) to identify new risks in their positions and to communicate and inform those responsible for their safety in the company about the best way to prevent them. Because they are the main people involved and those who, day after day, develop them in a real way. These are tools to generate the true preventive culture for which all occupational risk prevention technicians fight and in their day chose this discipline as a profession.