What Features to Look for in Your Staff Training Matrix

A lot of training coordinators, safety managers, project leaders and people in HR rely heavily on a training matrix for their business or organization. That has meant up until the last few years, that it was almost certainly done via spreadsheets on Excel. But as things in the workplace expand and change, and more specialized needs arise, so the basic training matrix has moved on. There are far better solutions to tracking your employees and their skills and training. Also while a spreadsheet might do when you have less than 10 employees to track, more than and things start getting more complex. Here is seven features you should want to see in your staff training matrix software.

Seven features you should have

1. Up to date reports – Having access to up to date reports on each of your employees can be a very useful way to stay ahead of things. When you have more than one location and site to manage, and different skills needed on different sites, you need to know who is where, and what skill gaps there on the different sites and when you can get them filled. Without this, problems can quickly arise that might not become obvious until you are lacking the personnel and a project gets held up as a result.
2. Automated system reminders – There might be gaps between when you have physically looked at the information on the training matrix. Having automated reminders when training is due for renewal or for when certain people need certain certifications is a good way to keep on top of things.
3. An archive of five years – There is a requirement to have 5 years of information kept in your archives for when an audit is due.
4. Access from anywhere – By having access from anywhere, you can make sure all of the safety regulations are adhered to, so your people stay safe and so your business does not face repercussions. Access from anywhere means you can look at the data at whatever location you are at.
5. Be able to organize it according to staff training requirements - A staff training matrix keeps everything well organized. When you have multiple staff needing multiple different training requirements it is easy to get confused or to lose track of someone. Human error happens. With a program that is not going to happen.
6. Be able to follow trends over time – With all that data the software can do all the comparisons for you and find where the gaps are and see where the trends are. This allows you to be far more proactive in your training management.
7. Make sure storage is secure – Storage of paper certificates and such takes up room, it is a fire risk, and there is also the issue of sensitive data storage. By digitizing and using software for a training matrix you can ensure that data is secure.