Heavy Equipment Operator Training – Don’t Underestimate Out-Of-The-Seat Training

In-the-seat training is essential for careers such as heavy equipment operations, truck driving and crane operations. In fact, the more time you can spend in-the-seat, the better. However, you should never underestimate the value of out-of the-seat training, often referred to as classroom training, or theoretical training. Classroom training is where quality operators and drivers are born since it delivers training in areas such as safety, working in a team, paperwork (and these careers certainly have paperwork), site layouts, and the legal requirements to operate heavy equipment, trucks or cranes.

When it comes to heavy equipment, operators also need an understanding of soils and soil types, and how those soils react when being worked by heavy equipment. This requires a combination of in-the-field and in-the-classroom training – and the field training is more like getting your hands into the soil to feel the differences. Out-of-the-seat training also involves observation – watching how heavy machinery reacts in different situations. Operators can better relate when they are then in the operator’s seat.

ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training Schools have carefully developed a training program that uses a combination of in-the-seat and out-of-the-seat training. Our school is well respected within the industry for producing graduates who are well grounded in all aspects of heavy equipment operation. We even train our students in the fundamentals of laser levels and heavy equipment maintenance.

If you are looking for a career as a heavy equipment operator, be sure to choose a training school that does deliver a well rounded training program. You can spend hundreds of hours in the operator seat, however, if you don’t have an understanding of some of the theoretical aspects, then you won’t be a better operator, and you may just disappoint employers and find yourself without work. Get it right from day one and you’ll be ready for employment.