THREE MANDATORY QUALIFICATIONS FOR YOUR NEXT FIRST AID TRAINING SESSION
-By Micah Bongberg Google+ | @annuvia
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – With most American businesses and organizations providing some level of first aid or safety training for their staff and employees, it is imperative that management select a firm to provide consultation, training, and follow up support regarding the best fit for their needs. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consistency in the health and safety training industry. This problem becomes further compounded with a lack of oversight and standardization and for large organizations, geographical challenges, such as having multiple locations diversely peppered across the country. Countless hours are lost locating qualified vendors, negotiating the investment and terms of the agreement, and selecting the appropriate vendor based on a firm’s corporate first aid training goals. To make matters worse, these efforts are further exacerbated when large offices require their human resources departments to properly vet each vendor for each office.
Consistency in application is key to a properly functioning safety program and adequate due diligence prior to the program’s inception will save hours of work and lost time down the road. Stick to these three requirements for your next first aid training session and you’ll be one step closer to creating a safer environment for your office, without the heartache and financial waste experienced by countless others in your field.
1. Know what your first aid training session will include and what, if any, customized programs must be addressed. The vendor must be able to scale based on your organization’s demands, give recommendations regarding industry best practices, and provide much more than basic first aid training. Consider, as you grow, will the vendor be able to help with evacuation training, CPR training, or other customized health and safety programs? If not, they might not be the right vendor for you.
2. Require instruction from medical professionals with years of field experience. The people teaching your office life-saving skills must have extensive experience responding to emergencies. Only professionals who respond daily, who have performed the skills they are teaching, and who have a passion for their craft, will be able to address the critical emotional aspects involved during emergencies. Lay rescuers don’t turn into inactive bystanders because they can’t remember what to do. They freeze, allowing people to die, because they’re scared.
3. The firm selected must be able to provide customized training at all of your facilities – nationally. One vendor, one negotiation, one contract, and one point of contact will save time, money, and allow your organization to contract and expand seamlessly as your organization’s needs change. Rather than asking satellite offices to adhere to corporate policies, then setting them free to find their own vendors and to learn a new field, the corporate office should set the standard and ensure the solution has been appropriately implemented.
“When asked, many of America’s largest organizations emphatically respond ‘we’re covered when it comes to emergency response and first aid training,'” states Micah Bongberg, President of Annuvia, a national emergency preparedness training organization. “Yet, these same organizations waste time and resources finding vendors (office-by-office) in a pinch, leading to inconsistency of application and, commonly, poor adherence to their very own corporate standards.”
If you’re not sure who’ll be showing up to teach your next First Aid training session, its likely that you also aren’t benefiting from economies of scale, financial savings, and the experiences of medical professionals who know the specific needs of your organization. By sticking to these three criteria, you’ll be the hero of the office. Not only because you’ll learn to implement the skills you’ve been taught, but because you’ve saved your firm time and money.
