#66: Safety Training- Are You Overpaying For What You're Getting?

In this episode, Joe and Jen dive deep into the world of training costs and provide practical insights on how to manage your facility’s training budget without sacrificing quality or compliance. From in-house vs. third-party training to hidden fees and travel expenses, they break down the key factors that can make or break your training program.

As a plant manager or safety leader, it's essential to ask the right questions when evaluating training vendors. The episode touches on everything from the true cost of training (including travel and overtime) to how to ensure your team receives effective, hands-on learning that directly applies to your operations. Jen shares real-world examples of the challenges that arise when hiring external trainers and the surprising additional costs, like billing for travel time or the risk of not getting full value from PowerPoint-heavy sessions.

They also discuss the importance of customizing training to your specific needs, whether it’s for confined space entry, lockout/tagout, or specialized equipment, and how to ensure your team is actually getting the skills they need—not just a certification. Joe emphasizes the importance of hands-on training and competency verification, while Jen explains how management can be more involved in the training process to ensure it delivers real value.

Ultimately, the episode gives a no-nonsense approach to managing training costs, understanding bids, and evaluating whether the training you're paying for meets your facility’s needs. With tips on how to get the most out of your training investment, this episode is a must-listen for anyone responsible for safety and compliance training at their facility.

The episode walks through key questions you should ask when selecting a training provider, including:

In-house vs. Third-Party Training: Should you keep it internal or bring in external experts? How do you evaluate the expertise of external trainers?

Customization of Training: Is the training tailored to your specific industry, plant, and job functions, or is it generic and broad?

Understanding the True Costs: Get clarity on whether you're paying for travel time, overtime for your employees, and potential hidden fees.

Hands-On vs. PowerPoint Training: Is the training interactive and relevant to your team's daily tasks, or are you getting a generic, one-size-fits-all presentation?

Managing Competency and Verification: What does competency verification look like, and how do you ensure your team actually learns and applies the training?


For more details, check out their website at Allen-Safety.com or connect with Joe and Jen on LinkedIn.

SEO Keywords: training costs, safety training, in-house vs external training, plant training budget, safety training budget, training vendors, hands-on training, competency verification, safety compliance, industrial training, industrial safety training, confined space training, lockout/tagout training, arc flash training, maintenance team training, training customization, hot work, welding, liability, risk mitigation, risk reduction, safety manager, safety budget

This podcast is intended for educational purposes.  Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice.  It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's episode training cost.
It is allergy season, so athousand apologies.
Here we go.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
We'll do our best.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Training cost.
Again, it's going to be theplant.
I'm the consultant.
My job is to make all the moneyI can.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
My job is to not get in trouble with my GM for
overspending on the budget.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Don't worry about it.
Just pay me more and everythingwill be fine.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
So the intent of this episode is kind of trying to
show you how to manage yourtraining budget and not let it
spiral out of control on youAbsolutely, and just also how to
make sure that you're gettingwhat you're paying for right,
Because I feel like we're allkind of like did I.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
That's a lot of money .

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I feel like we pay the most money now for the least
service ever for anything we doExactly Right so here's how you
can try and maximize yourchances of getting what you pay
for All right?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
First of all, are you going to do the training in
house, or should you hire athird party?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, it really depends what it is and it
depends how well you know mybusiness.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Doesn't matter.
I'm a consultant, I've gotgreat people on standby, I can
send it any day.
It doesn't matter if they'reright or the subject of your
industry, but I can sure sendthem and charge you for it.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
So the questions that I'm going to be concerned with
are things like well, what'syour experience specifically?
In my industry.
I don't want to spend all dayOur company just got sold and
now we've been bought out.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
So now we have to produce so many units and so
many sales a day, and I've gotto get some training.
So is your plant one of them?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, it depends who you're sending me.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Okay, it depends what's who's ever available.
He just got out of college afew months ago, but he's really
good.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
It also depends on his experiences, specifically
Again within my industry.
I don't want to take myutilities and maintenance team's
time walking you around thewhole facility trying to explain
how the world works.
Oh, when you're supposed to,when I'm paying you.
Well, you know what we do wecut the hours, we'll charge you
for eight, but you'll only haveto be there four, so your

(02:00):
maintenance doesn't get allaggravated.
Yeah, my concern again is,first off, does the training
need to be eight?

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, theoretically, but not really.
I mean, you kind of look at thestandard.
It kind of suggests it, but isit really?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I think my question would be so what's the training
topic?
Does it have to be eight?

Speaker 1 (02:17):
What are we really going to be doing all day?
I have eight hours ofPowerPoint and they are custom
to nothing that you're going tobe doing, so they're going to be
general info that I can send toyou and bill out.
That's my goal.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Okay, excellent.
So when I'm hearing some ofthat, it makes me wonder is my
team more qualified?
Because they at least know myfacility.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
And at least I'm getting a little bit of cost
savings.
My biggest thing is theliability of the subject that
we're talking about, right?
So do they understand enoughabout this subject?
Does my team have an expertquote unquote expert in that
subject to be able to take thaton and feel comfortable with?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
it, and that's what I'm trying to do.
Well, I've got one of those forconfined space.
Oh, okay, this guy got an A atcollege on confined space, so he
is good to go yes.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So my next question would be so, within all of this
PowerPoint, how are we going toever learn how to use any of our
equipment?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
You wanted to be trained, so I'm going to train
you to be compliant.
So you're good to go in thestandard.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Okay, so how does my team know how to do it for real
though Any of these things?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
That's a you issue.
My job is to bill you for acertain amount of hours so that
my team can get paid and you'recompliant, isn't that the goal
Is to stay compliant.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
So when I do lockout training, I have to walk them
out and show them how to lockout and physically do the test.
So are we gonna have, like,what's your competency
verification?

Speaker 1 (03:47):
I don't know any of your equipment and I'll just
pull your lockout procedure.
That's not been validated,probably by someone who does
know, maybe I don't know,because maybe a third party
wrote those, didn't validatethem and I'll just go off that.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I don't know that I'm comfortable.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
How many hours are you really looking at?
Because I can modify our hourstoo, so I can do two hours here,
an hour next month, an hournext month.
So if you're worried abouthours, they're really going to
know what they're doing, becauseI'm going to spread it out to
make it more user-friendly foryour maintenance teams.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Okay, I like user-friendly.
User-friendly is good.
My problem is going to be likehow do I make sure that I get
everybody the correct portion ofthe class?
What are you going to be?

Speaker 1 (04:29):
covering.
It'll be different things everymonth okay, so how does what?

Speaker 2 (04:32):
what happens if I have somebody on vacation for
that?
Well, that's why we're doing 12months, that's why we're not
doing eight so are you going tocome back and redo that training
for the group that missed?

Speaker 1 (04:42):
well, that that's that February.
That's a good problem.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
All right, so there's that one.
So now it is about the hours,really.
So you got to think about that.
You got to think about when youhire anyone external.
You got to look at how manyhours, because that's also your
maintenance time.
That's probably overtime.
Some of it's their days off.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
And that makes people aggravated when they got to
come in their days off andyou're only given two hours for
eight.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, are we doing nights and weekends type of a
thing, you know?
I mean like those are, you knowyou got to bring all your
people in from nights andweekends.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Well, I've got overtime, but do you, as a
trainer, do nights and weekends.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
No, that's that monday through friday eight to
four, but you need to bring allyour people in during the day.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I know they're going to be aggravated.
Yeah, you're cheaper, but Ihave to pay overtime now.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
You're correct.
Okay, so you're not willing tocome in.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's more for my overtime to pay my team to come
in on their off shift andthey're aggravated and crabby
about it than it would be if youjust had a night differential.
So you wouldn't even do.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
No, I'm just going to do days because I have dinner
appointments.
I have to do Dinnerappointments.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
I've got to go to the man.
I have to exercise.
I got to have some dinner.
I mean, we have a daily perdiem and I'm going to spend
every dollar on it.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Okay, good.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
How am I going to do that if I'm at your plan all day
?
By the way, we do have somepeople, if you need us to
accommodate, that are of doingthis so they can fill in as
needed.
So don't worry about what monthlike that you're missing.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
I can find somebody to go in that day okay, good, so
it's just whoever, though,that's free, or?

Speaker 1 (06:11):
how does that work?

Speaker 2 (06:12):
yes, are they going to charge me travel absolutely
okay.
Are they charging me for theactual day they're traveling?
Yeah, okay.
So if I bring your second teammember down, because I had team
members that missed from myside- Flights aren't free.
I'm paying for two travel days.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Hotels aren't free.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Travel time, travel cost all of it, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
That's how that is.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
That's a lot.
That changes my price then.
Yeah, a little bit.
Yeah a little.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Plus or minus 20.
20% Plus or minus 20%, that'show it goes All right.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
So the next one Shout out to all my maintenance teams
and engineers that are gettingplus minus 20 on their bids.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
You know what I could do?
You could just send all yourpeople to a conference.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
So I think what I'm understanding is that you have a
class that you're putting on,like maybe after hours on the
Saturday before a conference,and my team can all come down
and do that as part of theconference.
Well then, I still have to payfor the conference.
So I mean, I guesstheoretically that sounds like a
good deal, but you're not at mylocation then.
No, where are you going?

Speaker 1 (07:13):
to do the training.
I can bail out a lot morepeople if I get more people
around me.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
So where are you going to do this training?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
at Wherever I can, wherever it holds a hundred
people okay, because.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
I, I get paid per head okay, so it sounds like
it's a better deal for me,though, if you come to my
location and do it though yeah,but I've got that travel bill.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
You gotta remember that it's gonna oh, that's true.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Okay, so I've got to evaluate your travel bill and
correlate that to whatever theconference bill is and the
travel bill for my people to getdown there, correct?

Speaker 1 (07:39):
see, it is cheaper to hire me cheaper than what so
then we go back to um, maybeyour team doesn't like the way I
did the job.
Okay.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
So hire me, I'll come back and redo it.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Is that a cost?

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Absolutely, because we're just going to change it up
for you a little bit.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
So I didn't like it how you did it the first time,
but I'm going to bring you backor just I guess maybe ask for
somebody different.
Correct, I've got differentpeople.
Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
So this whole episode , for this is how it moves, this
is how it lives.
When we're asked every week howdo we manage our training costs
?
Do we do it internal, do weexternal?
And all these things getbrought up.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Jen's got to take all this data back to her boss I
gotta do something I gotta sellit somehow I've gotta make some
kind of semblance of all thethings that he just told me,
because that is the norm, right?
Yes, and that is typically whatwhat our clients are hearing
from training vendors.
So, whether this is a groupthat's coming in and doing arc
flash or electrical training, orhot work training.

(08:38):
Whatever the training maybe it'ssomebody coming in and doing
some kind of specializedequipment training, but a lot of
trainers operate this way, andthis is the feedback that we're
getting from our clients and ourcustomers that are telling us
this is what our experience wasbefore you got here.
This is our experience withthis other vendor that we just
tried to work with last week,and so there's some weird stuff

(08:59):
going on and there's some hiddenfees and hidden charges.
So we talked a little bit aboutin this episode the being
billed for the person's time aswell as their travel.
So the day that they're takingto drive to your facility,
you're paying almost a doublebill that day for some groups,

(09:20):
and so that's not expected formost of us.
I don't think.
I was surprised to hear thatpeople were doing that Now our
company doesn't do that because,we worked in the plants and
we're the ones that justify thisbill.
It's like what, yeah, we werelike what.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
All we want you to do is think about all the
questions to ask yes, that wayyou're not paying because you
have to choose between threedifferent services.
Maybe your plant says you gotto get three bids.
Yeah, you need to be askingbecause that's the real bid.
It's not.
It's not the bid that you thinkit's.
The 20% thing is very common.
Oh, we're going to do a projectwhen it's 20 plus or minus.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
What does that mean?
It's never minus 20%.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
I'll tell you that in my experience, so this episode
is about looking at the puzzle alittle differently.
Yeah, thinking about you haveto get three bids and then what
are all the questions you'd bethinking about?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
let's run them down real quick and just make it nice
concise, bulleted list.
So things that I would ask.
If I was hiring somebody rightoff the bat I would say do you,
do you, do we?
If you do, do you charge morefor them?
If I have a problem, can I callyou?
They're gonna be a bill.
If I call you and I have aproblem, are you gonna charge me
for that?
Can I call you anytime, or isit only during the week?

(10:29):
Is it only eight to five Like?
What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Cause we allow people to call us all hours and we
help them?

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yes.
So I would be asking thingslike is there a minimum or a
maximum?
What is the competencyverification?
Are we doing hands-on?
What does that look like Like?
What's your training methodlook like?
Are you going to sit and talkat my people?
Are you going to show themvideos all day?
Is the information going to becustomized in any way to my
facility or is this all going tobe like general industry, could

(10:54):
apply to anybody, be usedanywhere?
What is the customization ofhow you're going to tailor it to
my plant?
my facility, my team members,the jobs they're doing.
If I send a different audienceor a different group of
employees so I'm going to havedifferent job tasks.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Or today it's all English, but tomorrow Spanish.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Today's English, tomorrow Spanish, maybe I have a
team that it's all mymaintenance and utilities.
Tomorrow it's food safety.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Maybe tomorrow it's all off.
You can't teach a class thesame yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Maybe it's my maintenance crews versus my
sanitation crews coming in adifferent day and so their needs
and their risks and how they'regoing to apply that information
is going to be different.
So is there going to be anykind of modification to the
class, modification to thecompetency verification?
So those are all things that wewant to look at.
So, yes, cost is very importantand you're not going to get an
argument out of me on that.

(11:42):
But, in addition to how we'remanaging travel costs, are we
per head?
Are we per day, flat rate?
You know, know, again, it'sgoing to change the type of day
potentially, if you have threeemployees as opposed to 15
employees, if that's supposed tobe a hands-on class as opposed
to it doesn't really

Speaker 1 (11:58):
matter if it's all powerpoint you can't have
competency for some of thesesubjects with two people in
class, it's very, very difficultwhen you're really supposed to
have a group of people, becausethat's what you would normally
have.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
So, for instance, you know if we're going to be doing
some kind of confined spacestuff, or maybe it's hot work,
maybe it's some lockout orwhatever.
But it's hard to accomplishcertain skill sets and really
test it out If you have oneperson in a conference room or
two people in a conference room.
So we really have to evaluatewhat are we trying to accomplish

(12:33):
and get out of the training?
What's the end result we'relooking for?
And then here's all thequestions I'm going to ask to
find out if this entity or thisgroup can meet the end result
that I'm trying to achieve, andif they can, great, we'll put
them in the possibility list andthen from there I kind of start
vetting out my trainers of whocan actually meet the needs.

(12:54):
Now let's compare those costsof those trainers that can meet
my needs.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
You have to go down this list first.
It's too volatile.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
It is.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
Location, location all over the country.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
It is, and you heard Joe bring up there's trainers
that absolutely are saying