One of the aims of Ladder Safety Month is to increase the number of people taking Ladder Safety Training from the American Ladder Institute. That, of course, is an effort that is not confined to a single month; it continues all year long, every year. One of the ways ALI has extended its ladder safety message and gotten more people into Ladder Safety Training courses is due in part to far-sighted adopters of the curriculum, like the Retail Learning Institute.

RLI is a people development organization supported by The Coca-Cola Company, dedicated to providing learning resources for food retailers worldwide. As an educational organization, it serves more than 15,000 businesses in 19 countries with blended training programs that include more than 500 industry-specific online courses divided into different categories: onboarding, compliance, departments, managers and specialized series.

In 2019, RLI added the American Ladder Institute’s Ladder Safety Training to its compliance curriculum. It has quickly grown to become the institute’s “golden jewel,” according to Ana Velazquez, RLI’s learning solutions director.

“Ladder safety training is one of the courses we recommend all clients add to their employee training,” Velazquez said. 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.

RLI 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,” Velazquez said. “We want experts in their field, like the American Ladder Institute.”

Ladder Safety Training from ALI is fully incorporated into RLI’s course offering, so employees never have to leave RLI’s learning management system to take courses, which are offered for articulated ladders, mobile ladders and platforms, single ladders and extension ladders, and stepladders. RLI also operates sister training services geared toward independent grocers and general retailers, and ALI’s Ladder Safety Training is offered through all of them.

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