Employers are required to ensure their staff are competent to complete their assigned duties. Competency is defined by Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act as “adequately qualified, suitably trained and with sufficient experience to safely perform work without supervision or with only a minimal degree of supervision”.

Assessing competency is done by verifying proper qualifications, ensuring that training was completed and understood, and confirming the worker has sufficient experience completing the work. In most cases, a practical demonstration is included in the assessment to ensure employees can practically apply their knowledge.

The intent is to ensure your employees have the proper qualifications for the work, have received adequate training in the task and your company’s procedures, and have sufficient experience completing the task to ensure they can do it safely on their own.

Don’t rely on past experience alone to determine competency as this potentially leaves large gaps in actual vs assumed ability. Let’s use truck driving as an example: Take two Class-1 drivers with 30 years of experience each. One is a pick-up and delivery driver in downtown Calgary working in busy traffic and city congestion. The other was logging in the mountains of British Columbia chaining up and driving on icy switchbacks. They both have 30 years of driving experience but one isn’t immediately competent to do the other’s job.

Train all of your new employees on your specific equipment, processes, expectations, then have them practically demonstrate their ability to complete the task before deeming them competent. Competency should be re-assessed at regular intervals (3-years or less) to ensure workers remain competent.