Many small-to-medium manufacturers don’t want a fancy, expensive learning management system for making their own training courses since there are so many ready-made resources out there already.
If you’re looking for free or low-cost third-party training courses and materials, we’ve done the research for you. What follows is our personally curated and original compilation of free/inexpensive training resources.
You can supplement these with OTJ, site walk-throughs, and other methods to cover your site-specific training needs.
(If this list is useful to you, scroll down for the list of clickable links.)
The OSHA website has a plethora of useful resources for all industries; we’ve tried to narrow down the ones that are more useful for small-to-medium manufacturers, below.
Many offerings from colleges and tech or vocational schools have evaporated over the years. But of those that remain, some are offered in-person which suits some learners better. Look for a collage or school near you (even high schools) to see if they offer something that’s useful and free or low-cost.
Rutgers University has a few free online courses on offer here:https://rutgerstraining.sph.rutgers.edu/center-for-public-health-workforce-development-free-online-training-courses.html. At time of writing just a few are applicable for manufacturers (Opioid Awareness, Seizure Awareness, and Back Pain Prevention for Workers) but they are nicely designed and some offer personalized certificates upon completion.
Northern Illinois University Continuing Education has an event calendar of their training sessions here: https://cpelearn.niu.edu/course-schedule/ Look for those wth “Free” in their title. At time of writing, they had free forklift, machine guarding, and Lockout/Tagout courses, among others.
This website has a lot of Canada-focused training resources but for US manufacturers, it also offers a couple of free training courses that include certificates. No credit card is required, unlike some “free” courses.
The first option is for Hazard Communication which is well-rated by users. and the other is for heat stroke prevention. Find both here: https://aixsafety.com/free-hazard-communication-standard-hcs-training-online/ and https://aixsafety.com/free-online-heat-stroke-and-heat-exhaustion-prevention-training/ Reminder: OSHA expects training to be specific to your site and your hazards, so these resources are a starting point.
Despite the name, this website is not part of the official OSHA government site. They do offer free tutorials here, including topics that are important for manufacturing, like:
If you click the red button at the page of free courses (https://oshatraining.com/more-osha-training-resources/free-online-osha-tutorials/) that takes you to a much larger selection of courses ranging from PIT/forklift to NFPA70E electrical, but these cost between $20 and $80.
At this link, you can find a free OSHA Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) SafetyTraining course. They offer a certificate for purchase but since OSHA does not actually require formal certification for LOTO training, trainees can download their Learner Achievement Verification, from their Account Settings.https://alison.com/course/osha-lockout-tagout-loto-safety-training
Many state MEPs offer free training (and a lot of other great resources to supportmanufacturers). Find your state’s MEP by clicking the icon for yourstate on the NIST website, here: https://www.nist.gov/mep/centers
NIST will show you aone-pager for your state, and if you scroll down to the bottom right you’ll see the link for the actual website of your state’s MEP. Once you’re on your state’s MEP site, do a little digging to see if they have any ready-made courses or offer training grants, etc.
American Society of Safety Professionals has a series of free training courses,. Although many of them are meant for safety managers, some courses that are targeted to front-line workers are farther down on the page. https://www.assp.org/resources/free-learning-resources
At time of writing, we checked out all of the links that we compiled here. But some courses provided here may not be appropriate for your manufacturing facility and/or your workforce; it’s important that you review them.
If you’re like most SME shops and you’re having trouble simply managing and staying on top of training, try our 100% Free Training Tracker (no credit card required). You can link directly to your trainings, whether they are in-house or third-party, and the app will automatically remind your workers when training is due, track which workers took which training, and generate clean, up to date reports.
Share with us! Do you have a great free training resource to share for other manufacturers? Shoot us an email and we will add it to the list.
Want the list above as a spreadsheet with clickable links? Send us an email at:
Many small-to-medium manufacturers don’t want a fancy, expensive learning management system for making their own training courses since there are so many ready-made resources out there already.
If you’re looking for free or low-cost third-party training courses and materials, we’ve done the research for you. What follows is our personally curated and original compilation of free/inexpensive training resources.
You can supplement these with OTJ, site walk-throughs, and other methods to cover your site-specific training needs.
(If this list is useful to you, scroll down for the list of clickable links.)
The OSHA website has a plethora of useful resources for all industries; we’ve tried to narrow down the ones that are more useful for small-to-medium manufacturers, below.
Many offerings from colleges and tech or vocational schools have evaporated over the years. But of those that remain, some are offered in-person which suits some learners better. Look for a collage or school near you (even high schools) to see if they offer something that’s useful and free or low-cost.
Rutgers University has a few free online courses on offer here:https://rutgerstraining.sph.rutgers.edu/center-for-public-health-workforce-development-free-online-training-courses.html. At time of writing just a few are applicable for manufacturers (Opioid Awareness, Seizure Awareness, and Back Pain Prevention for Workers) but they are nicely designed and some offer personalized certificates upon completion.
Northern Illinois University Continuing Education has an event calendar of their training sessions here: https://cpelearn.niu.edu/course-schedule/ Look for those wth “Free” in their title. At time of writing, they had free forklift, machine guarding, and Lockout/Tagout courses, among others.
This website has a lot of Canada-focused training resources but for US manufacturers, it also offers a couple of free training courses that include certificates. No credit card is required, unlike some “free” courses.
The first option is for Hazard Communication which is well-rated by users. and the other is for heat stroke prevention. Find both here: https://aixsafety.com/free-hazard-communication-standard-hcs-training-online/ and https://aixsafety.com/free-online-heat-stroke-and-heat-exhaustion-prevention-training/ Reminder: OSHA expects training to be specific to your site and your hazards, so these resources are a starting point.
Despite the name, this website is not part of the official OSHA government site. They do offer free tutorials here, including topics that are important for manufacturing, like:
If you click the red button at the page of free courses (https://oshatraining.com/more-osha-training-resources/free-online-osha-tutorials/) that takes you to a much larger selection of courses ranging from PIT/forklift to NFPA70E electrical, but these cost between $20 and $80.
At this link, you can find a free OSHA Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) SafetyTraining course. They offer a certificate for purchase but since OSHA does not actually require formal certification for LOTO training, trainees can download their Learner Achievement Verification, from their Account Settings.https://alison.com/course/osha-lockout-tagout-loto-safety-training
Many state MEPs offer free training (and a lot of other great resources to supportmanufacturers). Find your state’s MEP by clicking the icon for yourstate on the NIST website, here: https://www.nist.gov/mep/centers
NIST will show you aone-pager for your state, and if you scroll down to the bottom right you’ll see the link for the actual website of your state’s MEP. Once you’re on your state’s MEP site, do a little digging to see if they have any ready-made courses or offer training grants, etc.
American Society of Safety Professionals has a series of free training courses,. Although many of them are meant for safety managers, some courses that are targeted to front-line workers are farther down on the page. https://www.assp.org/resources/free-learning-resources
At time of writing, we checked out all of the links that we compiled here. But some courses provided here may not be appropriate for your manufacturing facility and/or your workforce; it’s important that you review them.
If you’re like most SME shops and you’re having trouble simply managing and staying on top of training, try our 100% Free Training Tracker (no credit card required). You can link directly to your trainings, whether they are in-house or third-party, and the app will automatically remind your workers when training is due, track which workers took which training, and generate clean, up to date reports.
Share with us! Do you have a great free training resource to share for other manufacturers? Shoot us an email and we’ll add it to thislist. Want the list above as a spreadsheet with clickable links? Send us an email.
