---
title: Needs analysis
summary: What the business needs workers to do differently, why v1 would not change it, and which gaps training can and cannot fix.
---

# Needs analysis

**Status of the evidence.** No client data was supplied. The analysis below rests on public sources (cited) and on stated assumptions about a Honolulu property-management company. Every assumption is marked **Assumption** and is a question to settle with a real client before design freezes. Nothing here is a finding from a client interview.

## 1. The business problem

A property-management company in Honolulu employs maintenance technicians, groundskeepers and property managers. They work in tenants' homes and on shared grounds, using electrical cords and tools, ladders, chemicals, and edges and roofs, often outdoors in the heat.

The company has two exposures:

- **People get hurt.** That is the first cost, and the one that matters most.
- **HIOSH exposure.** Under HRS §396-6(a) the employer must furnish a place of employment "safe as well as free from recognized hazards." Under HAR §12-60-2(g), a worker who knows of an unsafe condition must promptly tell the supervisor, and the supervisor must act. When that chain breaks, the exposure sits with the employer.

**Public evidence that these hazards are the ones to worry about.** HIOSH's list of most serious cited standards for fiscal year 2025 has ten entries. Four are electrical, two are fall protection (one for construction work, one for general industry), one is a ladder standard, and one is the general duty rule (HAR §12-60-2(a)(3)). Source: [HIOSH most-cited standards](https://labor.hawaii.gov/hiosh/most-cited-standards/). This is statewide and covers every industry HIOSH inspects, so it says these are the hazards HIOSH finds. It does not say what the injury record of any property company looks like.

**Assumption.** The company has no reliable count of hazards reported before an injury. This is common where reporting happens by phone call or text and nothing is logged. It is also why the business goal in the action map is labeled projected.

## 2. What workers need to do differently

The performance gap is not "workers don't know the General Duty Clause." It is that on a real job, under time pressure, with a senior coworker nearby, a worker may:

- keep using a damaged tool because the crew is waiting
- work around a hazard instead of stopping
- stay quiet about a coworker's unsafe shortcut
- ignore their own early heat symptoms
- report late, vaguely, or not at all

The behaviors the business needs, stated as things a supervisor could watch happen:

| # | Behavior on the job | The hazard it protects against | Why HIOSH cares |
|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | **Stop it.** Take damaged equipment out of use, or stop a task that meets an ignition source or an unprotected edge, before the work continues. | Electrical shock and fire from a damaged cord. Fire from solvent vapor near a pilot light. | Electrical standards are 4 of the FY2025 top 10. HAR §12-60-2(c) bars use of noncompliant equipment. |
| B2 | **Speak up.** Tell a coworker to stop when their work is unsafe, and stop yourself when your body says so. | Falls from an open balcony edge. Heat illness. | Fall protection is 2 of the top 10. HRS §396-8(e) protects refusing an unsafe practice. |
| B3 | **Report it.** Tell the supervisor promptly, with where, what, how bad, and what you did. | Every hazard that is fixed only if someone hears about it. | HAR §12-60-2(g) makes prompt reporting the worker's duty and prompt correction the supervisor's. |
| B4 | **Respond to heat illness.** Recognize the signs in a coworker, cool them, call 911, and stay. | Heat stroke. OSHA: heat illness can worsen quickly and result in fatalities. | OSHA: "When in doubt, cool the worker and call 911." Almost half of heat-related deaths occur on a worker's first day on the job. |

The full chain from goal to behavior to practice is in the [action map](action-map.html).

## 3. Why v1 would not change these behaviors

v1 is eight screens and a question: title, objectives, a leadership letter, the legal framework, shared duties, the General Duty Clause, a summary, and one multiple-choice question.

- **It teaches about the law, not the job.** Three of the eight screens explain the legal framework. None of them puts a worker in a situation.
- **Its objectives are recall.** "Explain," "define," "identify," "recognize." None is something a worker does on a property.
- **It has one decision, and it is easy.** The single question asks what to do about a hazard "not covered by a specific safety rule." The right answer is the longest option, and the other three are unlikely picks. A learner can pass on test-taking skill alone.
- **It gives no consequence.** Feedback is "That's right" or "Not quite." A worker never sees what happens when a cord is taped over or a coworker is left alone at an edge.
- **It skips the hard parts.** The behaviors that fail in practice, speaking up to a senior coworker and reporting when it is awkward, are not practiced at all.
- **It overstates itself.** The last screen says "Your completion has been recorded." Nothing is recorded.
- **Some of its legal content is wrong.** It cites §396-6(b) for the employee's duty; that section is an employer duty, and the employee duty is §396-8(a). See [legal sources](legal-sources.html).

v1 is not useless. Its framing, that safety is a responsibility we owe each other, is the right emotional frame (v1 puts it in a Hawaiian-language word; v2 says it in plain English, at Dean's direction), and v2 keeps it. What it lacks is practice, and it also lacks the teaching that practice needs.

## 4. Root-cause check

Before designing training, ask why each behavior isn't happening. The four kinds of cause:

- **Knowledge.** They don't know what to do or why.
- **Skill.** They know, but can't do it well yet (for example, saying "stop" to a senior coworker).
- **Motivation.** They know how, but the pressure, the culture or the fear points the other way.
- **Environment.** The tools, time, supplies, or systems aren't there.

**Training fixes knowledge and skill gaps. It does not fix motivation and environment gaps on its own.** The knowledge gaps in this table are the ones the lessons teach; the skill gaps are the ones the scenes and the test practice. Where the cause is in the last two, the deliverable has to include a request to the company, not just a course.

| Gap | Knowledge | Skill | Motivation | Environment | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keeps using a damaged cord ("just tape it") | Partial: may not know tape is not a tested repair | Low | **Yes.** The crew is waiting. "It works fine." | **Yes.** Spare cords and tags may not be at hand | Training for the knowledge and the "how to say no." Company: stock spare cords and tags; supervisors back a stopped job. |
| Works near solvent and a pilot light | **Yes.** May not know vapors ignite at a pilot | Partial: talking to the tenant | Partial: the tenant has no hot water | Unknown: house rules on storage | Training. Company: a storage rule and a way to enforce it kindly. |
| Doesn't stop a coworker at an open edge | Low | **Yes.** How do you say it to someone with 12 years on you? | **Yes.** Seniority, fear of being "the one who told" | **Yes.** Harnesses, anchors, and temporary guardrail available? Supervisor reaction? | Rehearsal helps the skill. The rest is culture and equipment, and the company owns both. |
| Doesn't report, or reports vaguely | **Yes.** Doesn't know what a useful report contains | Partial | **Yes.** Reports have vanished before | **Yes.** No easy phone-based channel; no reply | Training for the content of a good report. Company: an easy channel and a reply. HAR §12-60-2(b)(1)(B)(vii) already requires a reliable reporting system and timely response. |
| Misses or ignores heat illness | **Yes.** Signs are non-specific; new workers most at risk | Partial: cooling and calling | **Yes.** "Tough it out"; the deadline | **Yes.** Shade, water, a plan for new workers | Training for signs and response. Company: shade, water, a plan for a worker's first week. |

The column with the most "Yes" is environment and motivation. That is the honest headline: a good module cannot fix those alone, and a module that pretends to will be blamed when reports don't rise.

**Recommendation to the company (in the case study, not hidden in a footnote):** pair the module with five actions that cost little.

1. Put spare extension cords and "Do not use" tags on the truck and in the shop.
2. Give workers a hazard-report channel that works from a phone in under a minute.
3. Reply to every report the same day, even if only to say "got it."
4. Tell supervisors, in writing, that stopping a job for safety is the right call.
5. Give every new outdoor worker a plan for their first week in the heat.

## 5. What is unknown and should be measured first

These would change the design. None was supplied.

- The number of workers, their roles, and how they take training (**Assumption:** phones on the job site).
- Injury and first-aid records, and any prior HIOSH contact.
- How hazards are reported today, and how often.
- Whether the company already has a written safety and health program under HAR §12-60-2.
- What the lease or house rules say about storing chemicals in a unit.

The [evaluation plan](evaluation-plan.html) starts with a 60-day baseline for exactly these.

## 6. Decision

Build a training that teaches first, then asks. Five short lessons: one for each of four hazards (shock, fire, fall, heat) and one on speaking up and reporting. Each lesson teaches how to **see** the hazard, **stop** it and **report** it, using pictures the learner can tap through, steps, and examples. Then it practices what was taught: sorting cords at speed, writing a report, answering a senior coworker who pushes back. Then it puts the learner in a scene on the job where they decide and see what happens. After the five lessons, a scored test asks one question for each of the twelve skills (four hazards, three moves), in situations the learner has not seen, and returns a personal grid that shows which skills are solid and which to look at again. The same grid is the one-page field card the worker keeps.

The first build of v2 jumped straight to scenes. That tests what a learner already knows. The root-cause check above says some of the gaps are knowledge (what makes a cord unsafe, what an anchor is, what the signs of heat stroke are), and those have to be taught before they can be practiced.

The second build exposed a different gap. A cold review by another model found that the test could be passed by a learner who knew nothing about safety: the longest answer was the key on 14 of 16 questions, the same cue this analysis criticizes in v1's one question. The same analysis now applies to v2's own items. The test is built so that no length habit, no tap-everything habit and no pattern in the pictures scores well, and a dangerous answer cannot pass.

**Scope, stated.** The training covers four hazards. It does not cover ladders, which are in HIOSH's FY2025 top 10, or lockout. The welcome screen says so. The reviewer who raised ladders was right that a Honolulu property crew uses them; they belong in a second module, and this build does not claim that four hazards cause most of the harm on the job. That claim appeared in the first build's welcome text, had no source, and was removed.