The split
An organisation with eight sites wants one safety programme. The reasons are good: the same standard everywhere, developing once instead of eight times, and an employee who transfers does not have to start over.
Then comes the reaction from site four: this is not about our installation. They are right, because the imagery comes from site one, so do the examples, and the procedure shown is just slightly different from theirs.
From that moment the programme has become an obligation for that site rather than a tool. And an obligation gets ticked off.
The wrong solution
The reflex is to make the programme more general still, so it no longer clashes anywhere. That is exactly backwards.
What you get is material in which nobody recognises their own work: a module about “an installation” with stock imagery and a generic procedure. Technically correct, recognisable to no one, and therefore useless for the purpose it was made for.
Generic is not neutral. It is the sum of every compromise, and it costs you precisely the authority you needed.
The dividing line that does work
The usable dividing line does not run between sites but between kinds of content.
What is the same everywhere: the didactic structure, the learning objectives, the level, the form of assessment, the regulation that applies nationally, the company standard. This is the core, and it belongs developed centrally and maintained centrally.
What differs per site: the imagery, the installation-specific steps, the zoning, the contacts, the case material. This belongs filled in locally, inside a fixed structure.
The proportion often surprises people: around eighty percent sits in the first category. What makes a site its own is a small but visible part, and it is exactly the part that decides whether people take it seriously.
What that looks like in practice
Build the module as a frame with fixed slots for local content. Imagery of the site’s own installation, one scenario from its own incident history, its own alarms and assembly point.
Write down who owns what. The central department manages the structure and the content standard; the site supplies and maintains the local part. Without that agreement, eight separate versions appear within a year anyway.
And keep the local part deliberately small. The more a site may change, the faster things drift apart, and then you are back at eight programmes sharing a name.
What you are left with is one standard that applies everywhere, with enough recognition in it to be believed. That is more expensive than fully generic and considerably cheaper than starting over eight times.
The balance between central and local is best fixed early. What else belongs in that first round is in the guide on setting up or renewing a corporate academy. The approach for organisations running several sites is under complex project teams.