Natas has launched the first of a series of on-line training services to meet the growing demands of many of its clients.

Asbestos Awareness is the first of a series of asbestos and health & safety courses that will be available.  Live and interactive e-training can now be taken by individuals or groups using NATAS’ innovative e-learning system.

Students can register for training and take courses on-line at a time and  pace to suit themselves (or their employer), with the ability to stop at any point, log-off then log-on at a later time and resume the course from where it was left.

Students are allocated a real course tutor who is available via an integral student-tutor messaging system. There is also an open message board for students. FAQ’s and resources are available online with tests & quizzes built in to help reinforce understanding of the relevant subjects and to test students’ knowledge. Students can monitor their own progress and employers can get instant information on the progress of any of their students registered on a course or range of courses. Completion deadlines and reports can be set to a clients own requirements.

At the end of each course where appropriate, an online certificate can be requested based upon successful completion of the course and tests.

Max Lopacki, Managing Director of NATAS comments “the need for online training has been with us for some years now and we have taken a conscious step to include this form of training delivery within NATAS’ portfolio to help support our traditional face-to-face training”.

While it is recognised that online training and distance learning cannot totally replace practical and face-to-face is it a very useful and extremely cost effective method to deliver certain training or modules of extended courses. It can also be used to pre-assess students prior to commencement of face-to-face training and deliver pre-course study material.

Clients with large numbers of staff to train will find NATAS’ e-training modules of immense value and practicality; cutting out much of the traditional costs involved with traditional training, especially if staff are spread geographically far and wide, even worldwide.

Comparing on-line delivery to a typical one-day face-to-face course at a training venue, the overall cost of undertaking an On-line training course would cost say £100 (including course registration fee & training time) compared to a total cost of over £1000 when you add up the course fee, salary of the student, travel-time, travel cost, hotel, meal, lost production and so on.

Additional benefits include; happy students who are not away from home, less stress induced by travel and extended working days (unsocial hours), plus it is an environmentally friendly means to deliver training by reducing paper and energy use as well as less pollution. For those firms who are ISO14001 accredited or seeking accreditation it certainly ticks the right boxes. 

Max Lopacki adds; “having developed and tested our online system within our own business we soon realised how valuable and versatile it was, not just for training delivery but for many other knowledge transfer requirements, the possibilities are quite literally, endless”

Tailor-made, subject, content and company specific online training can also be provided for employers and organisations. For instance, an asbestos management policy and plan can be presented to employees, their knowledge and understanding of the plan ensured by quizzes and tests plus the process is recorded to confirm the fact that specific employees have been informed in accordance with the company H&S policy. This can extend to a whole range of mandatory information and instruction such as those detailed within a companies employment handbook.

NATAS offers online training for individuals and groups with contract bookings available. For further details of NATAS’ e-learning services please contact the national helpline on 0870 751 1880 or email info@natasgroup.co.uk or more information.

NATAS will be demonstrating their online training system at Safety & Health Expo NEC (9-11 May Stand B70 next to the asbestos theatre)