Under the legislation in Australia, employers must provide “suitable and adequate” training to protect persons from risks to their health and safety at work.

The VET system of qualifications and national units of competency ensures that trainees are trained to a benchmark standard against each unit. However, the VET system is only able to guarantee that an operator is competent at the time they were assessed. As we all know, skills and knowledge degrade unless they are constantly being applied.

In the case where workers are not constantly applying their skills in a work context, we recommend re-sitting (refreshing) the course in question. This allows us to fill in knowledge gaps, and bring the worker up to date with changes to legislation, technology or best practice. Most sites in Australia will not deem a worker current against a unit of competency if it is older than 24 months.

In the instance where a worker is constantly applying their skills at work, there is a greater likelihood of them retaining the majority of required skills and knowledge against the unit. In this case, we do not need to re-train the worker and can simply challenge test them and perform a Verification of Competency (VOC). Increasingly, employers in Australia are determining that undertaking a VOC process with their workers is a time-efficient and cost-effective method of ensuring that the individual can demonstrate “current competency”.

Not all VOC’s are created equal. Because VOC sits outside the VET system and its regulator ASQA, there is no guarantee that a quality assurance process has been applied to any given VOC process.

Here at Pinnacle Safety and Training, we believe that any VOC must be held to an equal standard to the VET unit of competency. This is why all our VOC programs are mapped back to the unit of competency, and then contextualised to the actual worksite where possible. In cases where sites have a well-developed VOC checklist for a given skillset, we are pleased to assess against this.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Contact us to discuss your requirements. We will speak with you about the number of workers and skillsets that require verification. We can perform VOC assessments on site, or at any of our professional training facilities in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria or Western Australia. Workers must provide evidence that they have undertaken formal training and hold the national unit of competency being verified. All our VOC assessors hold the relevant units of competency, vocational experience and are industry experts in their field.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

This depends on how many workers are involved, but typically our VOC programs are four hours in duration.

WHAT DOES IT COST?

This depends on the number of workers and the skillsets being verified. Contact us on 1300 990 810 to discuss your requirements and receive a quote.

OUTCOME

Workers successfully demonstrating competency will be provided with an ID Card stating the VOC attained.

Workers who are unable to demonstrate competency will receive written feedback regarding the elements of competency that were lacking, and the nature of the gap training required prior to re-assessment. We often counsel workers who are unable to demonstrate competency to re-sit the VET course in question.

WHAT VOC’s CAN YOU DO?

Pinnacle can perform VOC for workers in the following skills:

• Working at Heights
• Tower Climbing and Rescue
• EWP Under 11m
• EWP Over 11m
• Forklift
• Confined Space Entry
• Operate Breathing Apparatus

HOW DO I ARRANGE IT?

Contact us on 1300 990 810 to discuss your requirements and receive an obligation-free quote.