Salt Lake City Schools Revamps Employee Safety Learning Approach -- THE Journal

Policy & Funding

Salt Lake City Schools Revamps Employee Safety Learning Approach

By Dian Schaffhauser
08/05/16

A Utah school district with close to 25,000 students has gone public with its decision to implement a web-based learning management system specifically for maintaining a training library for its employees. Salt Lake City School District has signed with PublicSchoolWorks to adopt the company's EmployeeSafe Suite.

Initially, the district sought a solution that would address various federal, state, local and district compliance training requirements and maintain virtual binders for organizing information about chemical inventory lists for each school and safety data sheets that could be quickly accessed from any web-enabled device. The request resulted in proposals from four companies.

School leaders chose software from PublicSchoolWorks, said Byron Garritson, director of human resources, in a press release, to "deploy and manage all required staff training, as well as add other courses to the staff course load as needed."

EmployeeSafe includes functions specifically addressing safety data sheets, among other features. The service includes around-the-clock phone access to chemical specialists, spill specialists and poison control hotlines to answer all questions about the safe handling of chemicals and address chemical exposures or spills.

The district is also implementing EmployeeSafe's Accident Management System for managing the reporting of staff accidents. That program includes workflow; when a report is submitted, designated staff members are automatically notified to investigate the incident and address the hazard, and the injured employee is automatically notified to take training related to the injury type to reduce the chance of a reoccurrence.

"There are other companies that offer parts of what [this service] offers, but the biggest feature for us is that they continuously track all legislation and update their offerings accordingly," added Garritson. "Prior to working with PublicSchoolWorks, we tracked legislation by attending legislative sessions and reading resources from organizations like the Society for Human Resource Management, which was too time-consuming. With PublicSchoolWorks doing this for us, we can be confident that our programming is compliant and that it will never be outdated."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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