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But it doesn’t necessarily take a huge amount of effort or money to make these sessions tolerable for your staff. In fact, a few simple steps can easily turn meetings about mundane (though vitally important) information into dynamic and interesting gatherings.
So, whether you operate a company that employs a workforce of thousands or you conduct business in a small office with a tightly-knit crew, you owe it to your employees to make mandatory safety training as interesting as possible. If you need advice on ways to spice up your safety presentations, consider incorporating these ideas into your plans.
Tip # 1: Rely on Reality
Employees often complain that the hypothetical situations proposed during normal safety training sessions bear little resemblance to reality. That perspective can lead to skepticism, which will ultimately leave the audience feeling disinterested and disconnected. Therefore, when discussing safety issues, rather than relying on impersonal statistics or stories about events that happened elsewhere, look to your own workplace for educational inspiration.
Managers should have already carefully documented previous accidents, injuries, near misses, or unsafe conditions in the company’s official records. Gather information from these records to educate employees about past problems and how those involved addressed the issues. Then, use that information to lead into a discussion about practices and procedures for preventing recurrences.
In addition, prudent business owners will ensure that their safety records include not only reports about past safety problems, but also reports about safety-related triumphs. Any time an employee takes action to prevent an accident, injury, or eliminate a workplace hazard, that information merits inclusion into the company’s safety file as well. Using anecdotes about past onsite successes and mistakes is a great way to generate constructive dialogue.
Tip # 2 Incorporate Health and Wellness Tips with Safety Training
While safety training usually focuses on the prevention of accidents and injuries, some employers have started incorporating an emphasis on basic health to promote wellness throughout the workplace. Offering tips on nutrition and exercise in conjunction with more conventional safety training events shows the staff that management has a vested interest in their lives and well-being.
That philosophy benefits everyone: employees may get inspired to take proactive steps to improve their own health, and a healthy workforce is generally a productive workforce. It’s a win-win scenario.
Tip # 3 Make the Content Fresh
When many people think about safety training, it conjures up images of outdated videos showcasing bad actors melodramatically reenacting dangerous situations and the often disastrous results. While videos can be an effective instructional resource, employees will get distracted by the dated footage if it clearly shows its age. Instead, ensure that your information, your displays, and any other components of your presentations are up to date.
After all, technological advances, cultural changes, and evolving trends in business and industry create an environment with new workplace dangers. For example, a smartphone can offer more distractions at the worksite. Therefore, the content of a company’s safety instruction must stay current.
Tip # 4 Avoid Monotony
Even very simple changes can eliminate that feeling of monotonous training sessions. For example, if you always hold safety presentations in the same location, change the venue on occasion. In addition, if the same individual leads every session, invite new faces to join in.
Perhaps most importantly, if your company traditionally relies on a single method of communicating safety information, such as lectures, mix it up with interactive games, role playing activities, and videos.
Tip # 5 Keep It Short
Rather than planning marathon-style training sessions where instructors provide a crash course on effective safety precautions, adopt a curriculum involving shorter, periodic meetings that focus on specific issues.
Events that last several hours and include a variety of topics can be overwhelming, and the information is more difficult for employees to process. Alternatively, presenting a single topic at a shorter session permits the staff to concentrate on particular ideas, and employees won’t get tired and distracted.
Tip # 6 Show Respect for Employees
Employees will tune out if instructors talk down to them. Instead, presenters should demonstrate respect for each member of the audience by encouraging feedback and participation during training sessions. In addition, employers can demonstrate their respect for employees by taking their interests, tastes, and schedules into consideration when planning training events.
Taking polls or surveys after training events to gauge what parts were effective and what parts need modification (and retooling future safety instruction accordingly) shows that the employer cares about the staff’s opinions and concerns. Employees who feel valued and respected will react positively, even if some of the material is technical and dry.
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About the Author
Jay Acker leads a production team at safetyservicescompany.com that creates safety training materials. SSC offers contractor certification assistance> for ISNetworld®, PICS®, and other contractor verification servicers.
