Illusions of Competence

Not all competent operators are created equal, regardless of what it says on their little plastic card.

Sometimes the signs are subtle: A site dumper’s skip distorted by repeated whacks from an excavator bucket; gouges in a machine’s counterweight; an excavator stood on tiptoes, reaching too far or lifting too great a load.

Sometimes the signs are less subtle: A machine lying on its side in a basement, upended in a trench, or - in extreme cases - on fire.

Subtle or otherwise, such incidents are entirely avoidable. Or at least they’re avoidable in the hands of a truly competent machine operator.

And there’s the rub. We have an industry filled with competent operators. They all have little plastic cards to confirm their competence. But not all competent operators are created equal.

There are some - time-served who have paid their dues on site. They have earned their stripes. They’ve been there, done it, and they’ve got the t-shirt. Their qualifications come in the form of hours worked, tasks completed, and challenges overcome.

And then there are others. They brandish their plastic, colour-coded cards - CSCS, CPCS, NPORS, CCDO - each one claiming to be proof of competence; hard evidence that they know what they’re doing; that they’re qualified; that they’re safe.

But here’s the ugly truth we’re all supposed to ignore: those cards don’t prove competence. They prove you sat in a classroom. They prove you ticked the right box on a multiple-choice test. They prove you paid your money and waited your turn. But do they prove you’re ready for a real-world, life-or-death situation on site? Not even close.

Real competence isn’t handed to you after a training course. It’s earned the hard way: in the freezing rain, in the dust and diesel, when the machine cuts out mid-shift, or when someone makes a mistake and you’re the last line of defence between an incident and a fatality. You can't simulate that in a PowerPoint presentation.

You’ve all worked alongside someone who’s fully-carded but can’t reverse a dumper without taking out a fence. You’ve seen guys freeze up mid-task or shrug off procedures they clearly never understood to begin with. But hey, their card was in date, so they must’ve been competent, right?

This isn’t just a criticism. It’s a crisis. Because the industry’s obsession with cards isn’t about safety. It’s about liability. It’s about box-ticking. And most of all, it’s about money.

Let’s not pretend otherwise: the entire card scheme system is a racket. Training providers, test centres, and card issuers aren’t there to develop skills; they’re there to move people through the system. It's a conveyor belt, not a classroom. You pay, you sit, you pass, you get your plastic badge of honour.

And it never stops. Cards expire because apparently, unlike your driving licence, your knowledge of safe operation, machine handling, or demolition protocol mysteriously vanishes over time. You don’t forget how to ride a bike, but apparently you can forget how to use a 30-tonne excavator if you haven’t paid for a refresher.

Of course, that refresher might just be another half-day in a portacabin, staring at a whiteboard while someone reads bullet points from a script. Then it’s another test. And another cheque.

And who’s footing the bill for all this? Increasingly, it’s the workers. Especially now that so many have been pushed into so-called self-employment; a convenient status for big firms that want flexibility without responsibility. You’re not an employee, they say. You’re your own boss. That means you pay for your training. You pay for your cards. You take the hit if you can’t get on site because a card expired.

Meanwhile, the training companies and card schemes rake in millions.

And don’t even get me started on the death of Grandfather Rights. For decades, the industry relied on the knowledge and experience of its longest-serving workers; men and women who knew their trade inside out. But with one policy change, those veterans were told: “Sorry, unless you pass this test, we can’t recognise your skills.”

Imagine telling a man with 35 years behind the levers of an excavator, hundreds of successful jobs under his belt, that he needs to prove he can still do the job he’s doing every single day. It’s insulting. It’s ridiculous. And worst of all, it pushed out some of the most experienced operators we have, all in the name of “standards.”

Here’s the uncomfortable question no one in the boardroom wants to ask: Are these schemes making sites safer, or just more compliant?

Because there’s a difference. Safety is culture. Safety is people looking out for each other. It’s taking the time to do it right, even under pressure. It’s the seasoned machine operator who spots an trench wall before anyone else. It’s the labourer who’s seen enough to know when something’s off, and speaks up.

Compliance, on the other hand, is paperwork. It's checklists. It’s plastic cards and digital records that prove you were competent even if you weren't. It protects companies from lawsuits and lets them tick the box that says “we did our part.”

It’s not about safety. It’s about covering your arse.

And the workers know it. They’re frustrated. They’re fed up. They’ve played the game for years, shelling out money and time for cards that don’t reflect their ability, only their willingness to jump through hoops. Many of them feel insulted. Disrespected. Treated like numbers, not professionals.

As an industry, we need to stop pretending these cards are the answer.

Yes, we need training. Yes, we need clear standards. No one is saying otherwise. But real-world, site-based assessment should be the foundation, not classroom theory. Let experienced supervisors and peers play a role in validating someone's capability. If someone’s working safely and effectively on real jobs, under real pressure for years, that should carry more weight than a one-size-fits-all exam.

The problem with plastic proof is that it fades. Sometimes literally. But always figuratively.

It can’t show good judgment. It can’t measure calm under pressure. It can’t tell you whether someone is the kind of operator others trust to get the job done right when things go wrong.

Competence is more than compliance. It’s character. It’s consistency. It’s confidence earned over time.

And we need to respect that. Not replace it with plastic tokens and empty promises.

We’ve allowed laminated cards to become the industry’s golden ticket; a shield for liability, a substitute for actual skill. We pretend they guarantee safety, but anyone who’s spent more than five minutes on a real site knows better. Competence isn’t something you renew every five years; it’s something you build, mistake by mistake, over years of dust, danger, and doing.

Until we stop worshipping cards and start respecting lived experience, we’ll keep sending operators onto sites; not as competent workers, but as ticking time bombs.