You are a seasoned and top industry training consultant for many industries. You have received an invitation from a very large North American freight transportation company that has over 32,500 miles of routes in twenty-eight states and three Canadian provinces. The railroad company hauls agricultural, consumer, and industrial products and coal with twenty-five intermodal facilities and has access to forty ports. The company owns and operates approximately 8,000 locomotives and employs over 41,000 people. The corporation acknowledges that the highest quality safety is an inviolate objective. The corporation wants well-trained employees who share its vision for an injury- and accident-free workplace and who are willing to care for and protect one another. At the present time, and thanks to the employees’ commitment, a carefully maintained network, equipment, and well-prepared communities, the organization is a safety leader in the rail industry. It wants to establish a new process named “Approaching Others About Safety” (AOAS). This will be a training program for all railway employees. One of the goals of the program is for its employees to be confident about giving feedback to each other about safe behavior and avoiding unsafe, hazardous, and risky situations.

Therefore, all the employees need to learn the value of providing feedback when they see unsafe, dangerous, or perilous behaviors and situations. This comprehends “positively” recognizing and diagnosing when someone is working safe and sound . . . or correcting his or her actions when an employee perceives that another employee is at risk. The organization’s preliminary thought is that training should concentrate on the types of exposure that tend to result in most injuries. This may include walking and the path of travel around trains, rails, and equipment. Also, pinch points between railway cars and climbing or descending locomotives and railway cars must be included.

Tasks:
1. Explain your understanding of the learning process in general terms.
2. Analyze the different types of instructional characteristics that this program should have for learning and transfer to result in a process that decreases injuries, accidents, and lost workforce hours.
3. Analyze whether the characteristics would vary depending on who was attending the learning program, for example, managers; train crew; maintenance employees who service track, engines, rolling stock, and signals; staff, etc.
4. Summarize how the learning process can affect an organization.