If you want your organization to be successful, you need to keep it safe. And if you want your organization to remain safe, you need to provide your employees with adequate safety training.
These days, many businesses opt to provide safety training in a group setting, providing instruction and guidance to multiple employees simultaneously to save time, streamline efficiency, and still ensure that your safety standards are met. The problem is, group safety training doesn’t always work as consistently or reliably as expected.
So what measures can you enact to improve your group’s safety training?
The Value of Group Safety Training
Group safety training can benefit your organization – and the people within it – in a variety of ways.
- Compliance. Your business is likely subject to various laws and regulations concerning employee safety. Conducting safety training and staying in line with those rules makes compliance much easier.
- Accident prevention. Obviously, better safety training should lead to a better record of accident prevention. Your employees will be less likely to be hurt or killed, and you’ll have fewer onsite incidents to worry about.
- Confidence. Employees who undergo safety training are going to feel much more confident about their work. This can make them more productive and more efficient, and it can boost morale overall.
- Camaraderie. Because your employees will undergo group safety training together, this module can greatly improve camaraderie and collaboration in your organization.
- Retention. Employee retention is vital for your long-term success. Most employees are happier and more satisfied in a job where they feel safe and where they feel like their employers value them. Improved safety training can make employees more satisfied and confident, and therefore more likely to stay.
- Reputation. Improved safety training and better safety statistics can improve the reputation of your entire business, which can help you land more clients and earn more visibility in your field.
How to Improve Your Group Safety Training
These are some of the best strategies to improve your group safety training:
- Set specific goals. Don’t provide group safety training in a vacuum; instead, set specific goals that you want to accomplish during the session. Even better, set goals for the individuals attending the session. What do you want them to learn during this opportunity? What do you want them to be capable of by the time it’s over? And what goals should these people set for themselves as they step back into the workforce?
- Hire (or train) the best educators. Group safety training is only as good as the people conducting it. Accordingly, you need to hire or train the best educators you can. Depending on your business and its needs, that can mean appointing someone who has experience in safety training within your organization or looking for someone new outside of the organization.
- Cater to different learning styles. It’s also a good idea to cater to different learning styles, if possible. Different people learn in different ways, with some preferring visual or auditory learning, and others preferring a more hands-on style. If you can train your group in multiple ways, you’ll make sure everyone has an optimal opportunity to master the fundamentals.
- Meet regularly. Group safety training shouldn’t be a single session, even if you’re only teaching a handful of things. It’s important to meet regularly if you want to improve memorability and make sure that your people are improving consistently.
- Consider utilizing microlearning. Microlearning is a new concept in the world of training and education. Essentially, it’s designed to minimize learning fatigue by breaking up educational topics into bite-sized chunks. Rather than bombarding your employees, you can provide them information in a more digestible, easier to remember format.
- Focus on application. Abstract safety concepts can be valuable, but they don’t mean much unless they make an impact on the actual work your employees are doing. Accordingly, your group safety training should focus on application to real-life scenarios.
- Get feedback. Periodically throughout your training, you should pause to gather feedback from the employees undergoing that training. What did they find most and least valuable about these training sessions? What do they think could be improved in the future?
- Make updates. Finally, be ready and willing to make updates to your group safety training. What do you think could be executed better? What new tips and strategies can you use to keep your people safer?
With these safety training improvement strategies, and a general mentality of ongoing improvement, you should have no trouble making sure your group safety training accomplishes its goals. With more committed, better trained, and more safety conscious people in your organization, you’ll have an easier time preventing accidents – and you can even increase profitability.
