1. Everybody in the organisation knows about the EMS, their role within the system and the consequences of deviations.
Without this information, you will not get the involvement of employees you need to make the EMS a success. Involvement will require not only baseline training, but also an ongoing communication. This will be treated in the next chapter of this section.
2. Employees who have environmental responsibilities have the corresponding skills and information.
For example, it is a waste of money to purchase new equipment to monitor wastewater content if the person responsible for monitoring does not know how to check the equipment and how to interpret the figures obtained. The opportunity to improve qualifications and to learn new skills is an important motivating factor for employees.
Baseline training, or general awareness training, is basically about knowledge and attitudes. Explain the motivation of your organisation for environmental management, the internal framework for the EMS, what changes will be needed, what you expect from your staff and how they can participate.
This part of your training programme is about skills and abilities – training to get the job done. You may go through the action steps proposed here to develop a training plan.
You have already determined the significant environmental aspects of the organisation (see Section 5, Initial environmental review). Now, we will look at the job functions associated with these environmental aspects.
