The full data from this IOSH Managing Safely eLearning Case-Study can be downloaded here:
Tell us a bit about yourself
I’m Hugh Pidgeon, I’m the Facilities Manager here at Wilkin Chapman Solicitors in Grimsby. I have approximately 500 members of staff based around 6 different offices stretching from Beverley in the North, through to Horncastle in the South, Grimsby in the East and Doncaster in the West. And that’s sort of our sphere of influence around this local area.
Why did you want your team to do the IOSH Managing Safely course?
I chose the IOSH Managing Safety course for my team to help raise awareness of health and safety throughout the firm and especially within my team. My team that I’ve looked at for doing this are mainly based in the Post Room. My feeling was that by putting them on this nationally recognised qualification, it showed that the firm was investing in them as people and helped raise their self-esteem amongst or amongst themselves.
It gave me as a health and safety manager, a member of staff at each site who has competent knowledge of health and safety. It saves me time having to regularly visit each individual site. It raised their employability if they move on within the firm. They take that knowledge with them and help spread that knowledge within their departments. If they leave the firm, they take that knowledge with them to their new firm for the new firm’s well-being. It showed the other members of staff at the firm that we invest in our staff and that can only be a good thing.
What impact has Compassa’s IOSH Managing Safely eLearning course had on the team?
Fun, intelligent, because of the way it is interactive video, and easy to use.
How has it impacted their attitude towards health and safety?
The staff undertaking this course have made my life a lot easier. They now are proactive in trying to find out information about health and safety. They’re then taking the lead on booking in equipment inspections in the next 6 months as per our contracts. And they’re also looking at carrying out the risk assessments on site and updating those. They’re taking a more active role in health and safety.

What did the team think of the Compassa IOSH Managing Safely eLearning course?
Their thoughts of the course was it was good fun. A lot of them came back and said the presenter, Will Taylor, made them laugh in your videos. That has to be a first on any health and safety course. That somebody has made somebody laugh! I can’t remember being on a course where people have laughed when dealing with health and safety. But they, they enjoyed the course they’ve learned
a lot out of it.
They’ve had information ingrained in their minds through the pop-up questions that kept popping up in the videos. They have learned that they’ve automatically being able to recall information and put it into different scenarios.
You have experienced both Compassa’s classroom and eLearning courses.
I personally would always go for Compassa’s eLearning course. Partly because they can dip in and out of it which means they
stay fresh. Having done a four-day, non-stop, health and safety course with a different training provider, I found it very hard going. Very soporific! I would now do it as an eLearning course and dive in and out.
What’s different about Compassa’s approach to health and safety eLearning compared to other health and safety eLearning?
The difference between the Compassa’s IOSH Managing Safely course and others that I’ve looked at was the video impact. And the way the slides seem to bounce along. It seemed to move very freely and it wasn’t just one static slide that you had to slog through and read through. It seemed to be very very much more interactive on on the learning. That to me, seemed to have kept them alert and kept them working.
The other IOSH Managing Safely courses I’ve seen were very much one screen, sit down, read, work onto the next screen, sit down, and read… And that takes a lot of self-discipline and appliance that maybe my staff wouldn’t have had if that’s what I made them do. To be fair if I’d made them do that I would have switched them off to health and safety and that’s not what i was trying to do. I was trying to switch them on to health and safety and keep them keen and interested.
They have now completed the course and that is what they are: they are switched on to it and keen on all matters health and safety. Which is exactly what I was after.
The Videos in the course are highly interactive. They have questions and activities which pop up and you have to answer those to progress. What did your people think to the videos?
They all enjoyed the videos. Some of them said they were a bit weird! But that’s life! As I said to them, if it was weird you’ve obviously remembered something from it because it was different to any other video you’ve seen.
Other people came back and said “they’re really good, Will makes me laugh”. What more can you have? I’ve found having attended various courses I learn off the videos and if it’s in there and it’s doing something slightly different that’s what’s sticks in your head and that’s what seems to have worked with them.
What would you say to organisations who want IOSH Managing Safely training for their people but think classroom training has more impact?
For me the eLearning has a greater impact than the classroom. And for this firm eLearning is the way ahead. It doesn’t like having people or
members of staff away from their desk for periods of time. So for my members of staff being able to do it at various random quiet times during the day or in their own time was absolutely spot on.
But also by able being able to dip in and out they were able to do something, read up on it, and work on it. Any questions they would come and speak to myself or speak to others and that would help them learn before moving on and then carrying on the course.
If you try and do that in the middle of a classroom course, the course covers so much content so quickly, people often get overwhelmed with information. They learn something really useful, but then the course moves and the information is lost so quickly and easily. Or they have a question but don’t get chance to ask before the tutor moves on. They didn’t understand, it’s moved on and they skipped over that knowledge. Whereas they’ve learned it in Compassa’s eLearning course.

Are you saying that if you study IOSH Managing Safely in a classroom course, it might be too much to take in all at once?
It’s too much to take in all at once. They don’t have time to assimilate it, to integrate it, to understand it and link it back to
their workplace. By doing an eLearning course over, say, a month or two, it gives them more opportunity to absorb and use the information and see how it’s been implemented within the firm. It enables them to come back to people and question why why are we doing things that way. It gives them that ability to absorb and assimilate the information far easier. And if they don’t fully understand it they’ve got other people at work or their online tutor to go and ask. Whereas if it’s in the middle of a full-day session in the classroom that information might have been lost because the course moves on so quickly.
So, on balance, would you say this IOSH Managing Safely eLearning course has delivered the same, greater, or less impact than a typical IOSH Managing Safely classroom course?
For me, as the Health and Safety Manager here at Wilkin Chapman, I feel the eLearning course has delivered a greater impact than a classroom course. The staff have come away with a greater knowledge because they’ve had the time to assimilate and take on board all the information that was in the course. They’ve had a chance to see it in the workplace. They’ve had a chance then to go back and review what the firm does and why. They then come back and ask questions of myself or of their branch partner as to why we do things in a particular way. They ask whether we could do things in a different way. And also they help identify areas that we may have missed or we may be a bit loose on. That, to me, is exactly what I wanted the course to do: for them to come away having learned and be asking questions of us.
Leave a Reply