Providers of online fatigue management training are defending cyberspace accreditation against allegations transport operators will be found out by the
Providers of online fatigue management training are defending cyberspace accreditation against allegations transport operators will be found out by the fast-tracked schooling.
Operators have scrambled to become accredited under new fatigue regimes ahead of the implementation of the new legislation, with online training a quicker and more convenient option for some.
But Mike Woods from Latus, a consultancy and training group aligned with the Victorian Transport Association (VTA), remains concerned online training is not thorough enough.
Wood highlights a clause of the new fatigue laws which states “to satisfy this standard an operator must demonstrate…competence in managing fatigue”. Those completing training online could be found out, he argues.
“A lot of people are confused about the 36-hour rule and work diaries. This training is about improving their life and my concern is that that message is not going through,” he says.
“There are a couple of things. [The online course] can be quite short; the original adverts said ‘get your accreditation in 90 minutes’.
“There are drivers that have no idea and they have this piece of paper. That is absolutely rubbish.”
Bill Henman, the Director for the College of Warehousing based in Sydney, is an advocate for online training. He argues those already in a transitional fatigue management program have done all of the training anyway.
“The only difference is the documentation process and the specific requirements for the relevant transport authorities and ensuring compliance with the relevant states,” he says.
“This being the case, the only new material is completing the work diary instead of a logbook.”
Henman says Woods is speaking “very much out of context”.
Regarding the speed at which some are completing the online program, Henamn says “it might take you three hours, six hours, 30 minutes, two months, it just depends”.
“I don’t know why he is taking four days because most of the people I am talking to are doing it in four hours,” he says.
“Within competency-based training systems every unit has a number of nominal hours aligned to it for a person who has no knowledge of the subject and needs to cover the element and performance criteria for the unit.”
Henman says course content should all be the same because it is a national training program and “we all have to meet the same standards”.
Brendan Torazzi, the CEO of online training provider Metronaps, also takes offence at the allegations from his competitor. He invites Wood to sit one of our courses.
“Online doesn’t suit everybody and equally face-to-face doesn’t suit everyone,” he says.
“If online wasn’t a valid way of training then why would universities be using it? It doesn’t make sense.”
Torazzi says his company is associated with a long-standing training organisation and is audited annually.
“The real issue here is for transport companies to ask their training providers if they have fatigue management on their scope. There are only [around] 70 RTOs (registered training organisations) in the country that currently have the appropriate fatigue management units (TLIF1007C and TLIF6307A),” he says.
The College of Warehousing is a registered provider with the fatigue management units.