How to Track Employee Credentials With a Comprehensive Database

Training is the foundation of safety in construction and other industries where workers use high-powered machinery, handle potentially hazardous materials and work in dangerous environments, such as underground or high above the street. Luckily, most construction companies today are diligent in providing their employees with the training and certifications they need.

But contractors must keep track of all that training and make records immediately available to supervisors on jobsites—quite a task—in addition to making sure workers are qualified for various duties. Whether your company employs 100, 1,000 or 10,000, building and maintaining a complete, up-to-date, reliable and readily accessible training database is essential.

Access & Security

Employers need to have one simple, universal system they can use to access, manage and update employee training records. It must be easy to use so that no user training is required, and it must be accessible to everyone who needs it, both in the office and in the field—especially considering that most access will come from supervisors in the field who are using smartphones and tablets.

Additionally, the database must be secure, protected and backed up so it can be relied upon for years to come. Therefore, putting the database in the cloud is the way to go.

Most companies have several sources for training records. These records may take different forms, including email, paper, Word documents, PDFs, etc. Some may even be images scanned in via smartphone or tablet. Some records come from within the company, and others are from external sources, such as outside training organizations.

And training can be held online or in-person, in the classroom or in the field. A comprehensive database must provide easy access to all these records. Otherwise, it won’t be complete and usable.

The simplest, most straightforward method to achieving widespread accessibility and ease of use is to digitize the paper output of each source, no matter what format it’s in. This takes some care to ensure the process is consistent and produces the same results every time. The following are some other challenges on the road to creating a first-rate solution.

Names & Nomenclature

Whenever you manage a complex database with thousands of data records, you will certainly encounter the problem of needing a cohesive nomenclature. This requires having a naming convention for calling things by standardized names.

For example, the titles “Assistant Foreman,” “Asst Foreman” and “ASSIST. FOREMAN” may all mean exactly the same thing. But these three terms will look different in a database, and as a result, a search may inadvertently not find all relevant entries. If you are looking for an assistant foreman with a specific qualification, but foremen’s job titles are spelled differently, you may not find the person you’re looking for.

Even the same credential, like cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)/automated external defibrillator (AED) certification, usually has different names depending on whether the training was delivered by, say, the American Red Cross or the American Heart Association. The best solution is to create tables of standard names for such items as titles, credentials and qualifications.

Then, you can force all new records to conform to these standard names, as you should have the ability to batch rename nonconforming names to the standardized name. This will allow you to clean up your database information and make it much more usable.

Up-to-date Data

Once your database is in good shape, you must keep it up to date. Be sure to regularly remind all trainers and supervisors that it is company policy to record each worker’s completion of new training right away. And make it easy for them to do so.

One good solution is to print a quick-response (QR) code on each worker’s employee ID card. With that in place, authorized trainers can automatically record attendees upon course completion. Using a smartphone and a simple app, the trainer just scans the QR code on the ID card to update the employee’s training records, which are stored securely in the cloud. If that’s not feasible, the trainer can look up the employee in the database, and with a few keystrokes, they can update the employee’s records.

When an employee is assigned a job, the supervisor uses a smartphone or tablet to scan the QR code on the ID card. The employee’s current training records are then displayed on the screen, securely and reliably, and the supervisor can confidently assign the work or get someone else if the worker isn’t qualified because they either never had the training or let the certification lapse. The system can also alert staff about the need to renew certifications so that they keep their training up to date.

Database Maintenance

Establishing a solid base system does take some work, but it makes ongoing upkeep much easier. Organizations that have successfully navigated this process often start with a small group or division first, refining their approach before expanding the database to include the rest of the organization. 

Finding the right process for consolidating all historical records, no matter what source they are currently held in, is easier for a small group. But typically, this same process can then be replicated throughout the company. Once the database is completed, ongoing upkeep is relatively simple since there are only a limited number of sources for new training records.