Training, competence and e-learning

Expiry discovered
at the gate.

Every card, ticket and course in one grid that colours itself red before the gateman does it for you.

Five operatives working across five lifts of scaffold on a city centre job

In plain terms

A training matrix is a grid of people against qualifications, showing who holds what and when it runs out. In construction it is also the document a main contractor asks for before your people get through the gate, and the one an auditor asks for afterwards.

Unibuild holds every qualification, card, ticket and e-learning course your people hold in one grid that colours itself when something has expired, with the certificate file attached to each entry and a single-page A3 export you can hand to a main contractor or an auditor without reformatting anything.

How competence is usually tracked

Accurate on the day it was built. Reviewed at the last audit.

Which is the honest description of almost every training matrix in the industry.

Certificates

A lever arch file, a shared drive organised by year, and a phone camera roll.

Three places at once

Cards

In wallets and vans. Nobody in the office has seen the back of one since it was issued.

Unverified

Monday morning

The gateman scans it. It expired eleven days ago. He goes home.

A day, and a reputation

E-learning

Its own portal, its own login, certificates emailed to whoever booked the course.

Nowhere near the cards

The auditor asks

For asbestos awareness in the last twelve months. Two days of trawling email.

Two days

The PQQ

The spreadsheet is reformatted, dates are guessed, and the two versions diverge.

Sent, and now wrong

The underlying issue A matrix that is updated when somebody remembers is a matrix that is wrong And it is wrong at the gate

CSCS cardsTickets and tokensQualificationsE-learningThirty-nine coursesExpiry datesRed when expiredCertificate attachedCard front and backA3 exportFor a main contractorFor an auditorAsbestos awarenessWorking at heightManual handlingPer person, per course CSCS cardsTickets and tokensQualificationsE-learningThirty-nine coursesExpiry datesRed when expiredCertificate attachedCard front and backA3 exportFor a main contractorFor an auditorAsbestos awarenessWorking at heightManual handlingPer person, per course

What the module does

Six things a spreadsheet of names and dates cannot.

One grid,
colouring itself

People down the side, qualifications across the top, and the cell colours itself when something has expired rather than waiting for a person to notice it.

Expired is a state the grid shows, not a date you compare
So the matrix is right on a Tuesday as well as at audit
Cards, tickets, qualifications and courses in one place
Not three systems and a camera roll

Current, not last reviewedLive

The certificate
is attached

Each entry carries its own certificate file, so the evidence and the record are the same object rather than a date in a grid and a PDF somewhere else.

Card scans, front and back, held on the person
Provider certificates alongside the cards they belong with
Which is what an auditor is actually asking to see
Findable in seconds rather than in two days

The date and the proof, togetherLive

E-learning in
the same place

Thirty-nine tracked courses, from asbestos awareness and working at height to COSHH, manual handling and CDM awareness, held against the person rather than in the provider's portal.

So completion is visible next to the card it supports
Not emailed to whoever happened to book the course
The general induction and awareness training, evidenced
Per person, per course, with the date

One portal, not twoLive

An A3 you can
hand over

A single-page export of the matrix, produced from the live record, for a main contractor asking at pre-qualification or an auditor asking on the day.

Generated rather than reformatted, so it cannot diverge
The version they get is the version you hold
No dates guessed at to fill a gap in a template
Which is the difference at a PQQ

Produced, not preparedLive

Watched, not
remembered

Expiries are counted down rather than relying on a diary note or a recurring calendar entry set by somebody who has since left the business.

Renewals surface before the gateman finds them
Which is a day of work rather than a lost one
And a client who never hears about it
The reminder does not leave when the person does

Before Monday, not on itLive

On the person,
not in a folder

Training sits on the same personnel record as everything else about that individual, so competence, documents, assessments and cost rate are one file rather than four.

The record survives them leaving
And it is the same record the labour run allocates from
Which is what makes it worth keeping current
One person, one file, one truth

Part of the person, not a systemLive

Ask how many of your cards expire in the next ninety days.

Almost nobody can answer that from a spreadsheet without an afternoon's work, and it is the question a main contractor is effectively asking every time somebody arrives at a gate.

Book a demo → 30 minutes. The demo runs on our own data.

What it is worth when somebody checks

The three moments a training matrix actually gets read.

Nobody looks at it the rest of the time, which is exactly why it has to be right without anybody looking at it.

At the gate, on a Monday

A card scanned and rejected costs a day of work, a difficult phone call and a client who remembers. It is the most expensive way to discover an expiry and the most common, because it is the only check in the process that actually happens automatically.

At pre-qualification

A main contractor asks for the matrix. The spreadsheet version gets reformatted, gaps get filled with estimates, and the copy sent to the client immediately starts diverging from the one held internally. An export generated from the live record cannot do that.

After something has happened

The question is whether the person doing the work was competent to do it, and the answer has to be a record with a date rather than a recollection. This is the moment the certificate being attached to the entry rather than filed separately stops being administrative tidiness.

The Health and Safety at Work Act duty

Section 2(2)(c) requires an employer to provide such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary. The matrix is the documentary record that it was provided and when, with the provider's certificate attached to each entry.

What it does not do

It records competence; it does not police it. The platform does not currently prevent a task being given to somebody whose training has lapsed, so the control is that you can see it rather than that the software stops it. That is a planning question worth raising at implementation rather than assuming either way.

Cards are only half of it

A CSCS card says somebody has passed a test. The e-learning record says what they have actually been trained on this year. Holding both against the same person is what turns a card check into a competence position, and it is the half most firms keep somewhere else entirely.

The matrix is one column of a bigger record.

Competence sits on the same personnel file as documents, assessments, dated cost rates and access, which is what makes it worth keeping current.

See the personnel record → Or call the office on UK hours

Questions

Asked by whoever
fills in the PQQ.

Can we hand the matrix straight to a main contractor?+

Yes. There is a single-page A3 export produced from the live record, so what the client receives is what you actually hold. That matters because the spreadsheet version of this always involves reformatting, and reformatting is where dates get guessed at to fill a gap. From that moment the copy they have and the copy you have are different documents, and only one of them is true.

Does it cover e-learning as well as cards?+

Both, in the same grid, which is the point. Thirty-nine courses are tracked, from asbestos awareness and working at height to COSHH, manual handling, CDM awareness and health and safety induction. In most firms the e-learning lives in the provider's portal with its own login and the certificates go to whoever booked the course, which is nowhere near the CSCS scans. Holding them together is what turns a card check into a competence position.

Where do the actual certificates live?+

Attached to the entry they belong to, so the date and the evidence are one object rather than a grid cell and a PDF somewhere else. Card scans are held front and back on the person. When an auditor asks for evidence that operatives have had asbestos awareness in the last twelve months, the answer is a filter rather than two days of trawling email.

Will it stop somebody with an expired card being sent to site?+

It will show you, clearly and in advance, and expiries are counted down rather than relying on a diary note set by somebody who has since left. What it does not currently do is prevent a task being allocated to somebody whose training has lapsed. That is a records strength and a planning gap, and we would rather state it than let you find out. If hard prevention matters to you, raise it at implementation.

How does this relate to the personnel record?+

It is part of it. Competence sits on the same record as the person's documents, their health surveillance assessments, their dated cost rates and their access, so one individual is one file rather than four. That also means it survives them leaving, which matters when a question about a job from two years ago needs a named, competent person attached to it.

Does it satisfy our legal duty on training?+

It gives you the documentary record. Section 2(2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires an employer to provide such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary, and the matrix evidences that it was provided, to whom and when, with the certificate attached. Deciding what training is necessary for your work remains yours, and how the duty applies to your business is a question for your own adviser rather than for us.

What about subcontractors' competence?+

This module covers your own people. Subcontract firms are managed as firms, with their insurances, accreditations and compliance documents watched so that expired cover removes them from selection overnight. The two work alongside each other, and the honest framing is that you hold competence for your employees and hold evidence of competence for the firms you engage.

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