There have been two deaths in the USA on two separate incidents on wind energy sites.

1^st Incident is a fall from height on a site near Wichita Falls, in Texas. The worker fell from a height inside a tower on the 24^th April 2024 and was pronounced dead on the scene.

2^nd Incident is an electrocution on a site near Lyford Texas. Where two technicians were working on a wind turbine doing electrical work when the incident happened on the 8^th may 2024.

This is two incidents in less than a month and two families destroyed. Every worker is entitled to return home the same way as they entered work that morning. Often the simple things are the most effective. But clearly something has gone wrong here.  Completing an Introductory level course and calling it a competency course is far from what’s needed today. All Introductory level course delegates should be supervised at all times on a work site. This is a process utilised is most industry’s today, for example Rope Access, Rope Rescue and Confined Space Entry and many others but why not wind energy. So I ask myself WHY?.

Clearly the Hazard assessment does not identify enough of the workplace hazards, because if it did, we would not be looking at stats to see where the main issues are. Clearly the training Curriculums are not going far enough to create a high level of competency.

For many years now, I have been questioning do we go far enough when it comes to Knowledge, Skills and Attitude. I trained over 9000 delegates in my time in the USA and I used to always ask the delegates what are the most common issues they face at work and only answer using bullet points.

Looking at information provided to me between 2016 to 2020 here is what I found was the problematic areas that we discussed in brief.

Management:

KPI’s put unnecessary Pere pressure on workers to achieve goals in a none safe way. Issues can happen on site due to weather, Heat, Cold, Logistics, staffing issues and so on, but we seem to make that time lost the workers issue to catch up.

Trainers:

Why is it ok to have a trainer, with no formal safety training or experience to become a trainer expectable today. Trainers with bad habits and bad attitude is like trainer with a bomb. Trainers that haven’t gone through any formal equipment manufactures training or manufactures fall protection training. The Basics of any good Trainer is to have the best Attitude, Skills & Knowledge to be a good competent trainer this ensures that the delegate has the confidence to ASK and get an industry standard answer to any question. There is no such thing as a stupid question.

Training:

Training programs do not go far enough, the time limit of 16 hours for a work at height course is far from enough as I have seen this. Anyone with training experience knows that there are 3 types of learning styles {Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic} and two types of teaching methods {Standard, Experienced} when you have to adapt your training this time is not taken into consideration on association-based training. Many instructors don’t even know the basics to teaching using the psychological approach {Behaviorist, Humanistic, Cognitive} and adapting there training to suite the delegate. Complex rescue kits are also on of the issues brought up by delegate discussions.

Safety Culture:

All Sites a are KPI based and most sites are reactive instead of being proactive. Sure, they will all tell you we are proactive when it comes to safety, but when you look closely this is not true. This was the most common complaint I got from delegates. Rescue drills is the second complaint I got form delegates. Most delegates have forgotten how to use the rescue kit proficiently because in between trainings classes which is two years apart, the techs never get the opportunity to refresh using the kit and nearly every time I used to get; I don’t remember how to use it speech. This is clearly a management issue in the work place.

Summery:

Management needs to do more in recognising that there is a life at the end of a number when they look at a project management spreadsheet. Using a modified SWOTH analysis for safety and using the SARA model for safety helps a long way to achieving this.

Whan training delegates internal trainers are biased to the company, I was asked by companies to remove items for the power points, because the company did not want the staff to know the knowledge to which I refused as it was industry based best practise. Wither it following the we follow the ANSI, ISO or EN standards followed up by equipment manufacture training this on my mind should always be our go to.

Trainers without any formal training on Training Theory’s, Psychologies, Learning Styles, Program development, Planning, Design, Delivering Training, Documentation Learning styles and Roles & Responsibilities is not an effective trainer. Training center managers should have completed all of the above and more formal managements training in the operation of a training center. Trainers need to be independently audited to show that they possess the relevant Knowledge, Skills and Attitude to the relevant subject matter to which they are training. In-house certification is not creditable today. In-house certification is biased to the company and having auditors that have no knowledge in this area is not acceptable also and this is happening on a yearly basis. There are some creditable auditors out there and that is a very small margin as apposed to the none knowledgeable auditors.

Training should be adaptive to all delegates needs. By doing this we will lead to a better safety culture as time is taken to make sure the delegate leaves with the appropriate Attitude, Skills & Knowledge for an effective workplace.

Safety Culture needs to be addressed in every organisation at every level, having it on paper is clearly not good enough and not working. All it takes is a little push of peer pressure and that expands like capillary wave {ripples in water} and gets worse as it expands. All it takes is a small drop (Physical Insertion) to cause it, even though the speed is slow it leaves an everlasting impression in the work place and before you know it there is nothing left of a safety culture in the company.

All Legel laws across the USA, EU, Commonwealth Country’s say there must be adequate assessments, training and equipment to complete the job. Instructors must be competent with Knowledge, Skills and Attitude to the relevant subject matter to which they are training.

I am open to discuss with anyone that wants to make a change in a more safety effective workplace if they wish to do so. We are asking the questions that nobody is for example Is a standard Manual Handling Course go far enough for wind energy techs in the industry today for example. Lots of issues have arisen that are not covered in the industry training because companies do not want to raise awareness to their workers of potential issues that is in their workplace. This would be seen as an admittance of a known hazard. This is only one example of many questions we ask. I will acknowledge work place complacency is a big factor of stats today. But if we focus on work place hazards and provide

Knowledge: High quality knowledgeable trainers delivering High quality curriculums with the knowledge of any situation the delegate could face. Having a three-tier system for workers to outline the level of competency to which they are competent to. For example;

Basic worker. A worker that has gone through the basic level for training but must be supervised at all times to the highest level.

Competent Worker: A worker that has gone through has been assessed to meet the skills required to meet any hazardous situation in the workplace and has been adeemed competent to work unsupervised.

Supervisor: A worker that has gone through has been assessed to meet the skills required to meet any hazardous situation in the workplace and has been adeemed competent to supervise another worker.

Skills: All delegates should have the required skills to fit any situation at any time on any work site.

Attitude: Impute and emphasize on good safety culture to where complacency is questioned and peer pressure is addressed.