Best Practices for Engaging Workers in Health and Safety Training
Provide relevant consequences. Consequences will assist in showing your workers what is in it for them.
- By Jill Potts
- May 01, 2016
One component of any health and safety program is initial and ongoing training. But where to begin? Often, industrial hygienists and safety professionals are not trained teachers/trainers. However, given that the workforce is comprised of adults, employers should follow key adult education guidelines to help make health and safety programs effective.
Adult learners, such as workers, should be trained with certain points in mind. A big training mistake is utilizing the same teaching tools that are used in a child’s classroom. Those who help adults learn follow different methods than teachers of children or young people. When teaching children, the focus is on the teacher; with adult instruction, however, the focus is on the learner. There is an art and a science to teaching adults (andragogy). Without delving into an entire course of adult education study, this article will provide tips for structuring your content and for presenting health and safety content to adults. (“What is Andragogy and Who Needs to Know?” http://adulted.about.com/od/glossary/g/Andragogy.htm)
One strong approach for educating adults is gaining buy-in. Increase buy-in by using the following strategies:
1. Focus on what’s in it for them. If a health and safety program’s purpose is unclear or appears to benefit the company only, many workers will not take the subject matter seriously. The audience must understand how the training directly relates to their daily personal lives. An effective trainer presents how particular health and safety programs or topics impact workers. For instance, going home to families/friends safely may outweigh fulfilling the government’s safety requirement or documenting zero accidents/workplace incidents for the individual worker.
Benefit vs. burden
The worker’s personal benefit must overshadow the training/requirement’s perceived inconvenience for that person. For instance, some feel burdened following safety requirements (for example, the designated work environment’s daily respirator wear or hearing protection products). They may complain that the company only wants to protect itself and that the employer is not concerned about their employees’ health and safety—and might fail to see the employer as protecting each individual’s health and safety. Be mindful that the employee’s focus is not the benefits for the company, such as lessening production lost time or meeting rules set by various government agencies, but instead is his/her personal health and safety.
This article originally appeared in the May 2016 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.
