How Ladder Safety Training Works All Year Long

One of the aims of Ladder Safety Month is to increase the number of people taking ladder safety training from the American Ladder Institute (ALI). That, of course, is an effort that is not confined to a single month; it continues all year long, every year. Luckily for members of the Independent Grocers Alliance, the IGA Coca-Cola Institute offers ALI's Ladder Safety Training, which Ana Velázquez, the Institute's learning solutions director, calls its “golden jewel.” 

“Ladder safety training is one of the courses we recommend all clients add to their employee training,” said Velázquez. More than 300 organizations have incorporated the course into their regular employee training, and more than 10,000 people have taken at least one ladder safety training course from ALI.

The courses help keep employees safer by teaching them the proper way to use ladders. They also protect employers, providing proof that they have made the training available and that employees have completed it.

“I’ve been with the Institute for 16 years and I’ve only been contacted by lawyers twice,” said Velázquez. “Both times were related to ladder safety training.” She notes that, in both cases, Institute member companies avoided negative legal judgments in personal injury suits via their ability to prove that ladder safety training is offered and that employees completed the training.

The IGA Coca-Cola Institute develops most of its courses in-house and has exceptionally high standards for courses developed from outside sources. “When we choose to partner with another organization to provide training content, we make the decision based on quality of content and the credibility of the partner,” said Velázquez. “We want experts in their field like the American Ladder Institute.”

Ladder Safety Training from ALI is fully incorporated into the Institute's course offering, so employees never have to leave the learning management system to take courses, which are offered for articulated ladders, mobile ladders and platforms, single ladders and extension ladders, and stepladders. 

“The American Ladder Institute has done a great service for us by providing this quality training content,” said Velázquez. “We want to offer it to as many people as possible, which why we make it available across all our training platforms."