Training matrix software: a training matrix for employees and safety

Training matrix software keeps the grid of who needs which training, by role, and updates each cell on its own when someone completes, misses or lets a course expire. A spreadsheet can hold the same grid. It cannot notice that a forklift certificate lapsed last Tuesday, email the operator and their supervisor, and show the gap to an auditor with a date attached.

Most teams we talk to already have the matrix. It lives in Excel, one person maintains it, and it is accurate on the day before an audit and drifting every other day of the year. The software is worth paying for when three things are true: requirements differ by role, some of them expire, and more than one manager needs to see the status. If you have 12 people doing the same job with one annual course, keep the spreadsheet.

In CompanyLMS the matrix is built from three parts you define once: a skill, the roles that need it, and the course that grants it. Assign the course, and when the learner passes, the cell turns current. Set a renewal interval, and the record moves to due, then overdue, then expired, with reminders before each step. You can track training completion by team from the same dashboard.

We read each vendor's own pricing page on 27 September 2026. Four of the six tools below publish a price; AG5 and Ecesis quote every deal. The annual figures assume every employee is active and the vendor's annual billing, and they are our arithmetic on the published rates, not quotes.

The honest reading: if you only need the grid, a tracking-only tool is cheaper than an LMS. ETM charges a flat band (Starter $45 a month for up to 30 employees billed annually, Growth $135 for up to 100, Professional $275 for up to 250, Executive $455 for up to 500), which makes it the lowest figure in the table at 100 people. Skills Base charges $2.25 per person a month on Teams and $4 on Enterprise.

CompanyLMS costs more per head because the matrix is not the whole product. The same $6 per active learner a month (billed annually, $7 monthly) pays for building the course, delivering it on any device, scoring it, issuing the certificate and chasing the renewal. If you already buy courses somewhere else and deliver them in a classroom, that bundle is money you would not use. If you are paying for a course library, a tracking spreadsheet and someone's afternoons, it usually replaces all three.

Buy a tracking-only training matrix tool when the training happens somewhere else; buy an LMS with a built-in matrix when you deliver the training yourself. The difference shows up in how a cell gets filled in.

In a tracking tool such as ETM, AG5 or Skills Base, someone records the result: a supervisor signs off a practical, an admin uploads a certificate from an outside provider, an employee submits a record for approval. That fits hands-on work well. AG5, for example, lets you set requirements by role, machine or license and handles assessment approvals by role owners, which is exactly how a plant signs off a machine operator.

In CompanyLMS the cell is filled by passing a course on the platform. That removes the data entry and the chasing, and it is the right shape for policy, compliance, onboarding and knowledge training that can be taught and tested online. It is the wrong shape if most of your requirements are practical sign-offs on a shop floor, because a skill is granted by a course, not by a supervisor's checkbox. Plenty of teams run both: a sign-off tool for machine qualifications, an LMS for everything that can be delivered as a course.

For the wider field of platforms that track skills and certifications, see skills tracking software and certification tracking software.

A training matrix should include every employee with their team and role, each required course or certification for that role, its status, the completion date, the expiry date and renewal interval, and the evidence behind each tick. Without the expiry and evidence columns it is a checklist, and it will not hold up in an audit.

These are the columns CompanyLMS exports. The learner report comes out as a CSV with learner, email, team, role, course, required, status, progress, score, due on, completed on, certificate expires and certificate code. The compliance report rolls the same data up per required course: renewal interval in months, assigned, current, expired, overdue, due and a compliant percentage. That second report is the one to hand an inspector.

Safety is where a training matrix earns its keep, because the requirements are role-specific and they expire. A US plant typically carries OSHA-driven items per role: hazard communication for anyone near chemicals, lockout/tagout for authorized employees, powered industrial truck training with an evaluation at least every three years, and respirator fit and training annually where respirators are required. Construction adds fall protection and site-specific orientation.

A safety training matrix in software sorts those by role, so a new maintenance technician inherits the lockout/tagout requirement on day one and a forklift operator's evaluation date is visible months before it lapses. The practical evaluation part of forklift training still has to happen on the truck, so record it where it happens; the classroom portion, hazard communication and policy training can run as courses that fill the matrix on completion.

For the courses themselves, see OSHA training software, safety training software and manufacturing training software. If your safety program also covers lone workers, field journeys and incident reporting, a safety management platform such as WorkAware (published Basic plan $3,000 a year for up to 20 users) covers ground an LMS does not.

Most teams arrive with a working spreadsheet. The move takes an afternoon if the spreadsheet already has roles in it:

1. Import your people. Upload a CSV with name, email, team, role and start date. The role column is what the matrix hangs on, so clean it first: "Forklift Op", "forklift operator" and "FLT" are three roles to software.
2. Add each requirement as a skill. Name it, tick the roles that need it, and pick the course that grants it. This is the step that replaces your column headers.
3. Set renewal intervals. Annual, every 24 months, every 36 months. Records then move from current to due to overdue on their own.
4. Assign and let it run. Learners get their courses, reminders go out before due dates, and the matrix and CSV reports update as people finish.

Historical completions from before the switch stay in your old file. Keep it as the archive for past audits, and let the new matrix carry everything from go-live forward. The skills matrix, compliance tracking and CSV reporting are on the Business plan, from 10 learners.