While it is not always popular amongst staff, employee safety training is essential. It ensures your business provides the right environment for everyone who works for your company without risk to their health. When staff know they have the ideal conditions to do their jobs, this provides vital peace of mind. It can also increase productivity and profitability.

But, how do you implement training procedures that employees take on board? After all, it is not enough to provide training if people don’t listen carefully to the rules and regulations. Fortunately, you can use several excellent techniques to make your staff safety training sessions much more enjoyable.

Read on to find out how to provide safety training that gets the best results.

Use Humor

You can set the tone for your training session by telling one or two jokes at the beginning. This can help staff relax and lets them know that you will try and make the presentation enjoyable. But, the key is not to make it seem like the whole session will just be a pleasant few hours away from the working environment.

Although you want to keep things as light and fun as possible, there is a serious side to safety training. As long as employees appreciate the balance, there is no reason not to tell a few entertaining stories that keep the atmosphere less formal.

Try Different Teaching Styles

Your employees are likely to be interested in learning the safety regulations that keep themselves and colleagues safe. But, not everyone learns in the same manner, so it can be useful to mix up your training styles. For example, some staff may find it is easier to read the information from a booklet, while others may prefer to do practical exercises.

By using a combination of methods, you give all employees the best chance of remembering the information. Before you begin sessions, you can also use questionnaires to ask what teaching styles are most popular with each learner.

Provide Examples

Effective safety training could include examples of why a practice or rule is vital. Perhaps one employee will not appreciate the importance of wearing a harness if they are on a platform that is quite close to the ground. But, if you explain how another worker suffered a serious injury falling from a low height, this can stick in their mind, so they always remember to stay safe.

You won’t want to scare employees, and you should be careful about providing too much graphic information. But, you have a duty of care to your staff, so it’s important they fully understand the risks and safety procedures.

Play Games

Another way to keep employees feeling refreshed and ready to learn is to play games as part of your teaching strategy. This doesn’t have to be complicated and you won’t need to leave the room. For example, you could have a quiz with a mixture of questions that include work topics, sports, music, and general knowledge.

This way, staff get to show their knowledge of safety procedures in a more interesting format. Also, if employees are struggling with some topics, they can learn from colleagues by listening to the quiz question answers. You can also add an element of friendly competition to help people remember workplace safety rules.

You could split the staff into departmental teams with the winners getting an extra half an hour for lunch the next day. Of course, you could also simply play for points and the winners will get the office bragging rights until the next training session.

Short and Regular Training Sessions

It may be possible to increase the attention span of employees by being enthusiastic and passionate about the subject matter. But, you still need to be aware that at some point, staff will not retain all of the information you need them to remember. It can be helpful to divide your training into shorter sessions and space them over a few weeks.

Staff may prefer this approach instead of spending an entire day in a classroom environment.

Online Learning

It’s a good idea to keep a workplace safety policy in a shared document that all employees can access at any time. You can also use an online SDS management system to ensure staff have critical information about hazardous chemicals. But, you could consider keeping your training materials online as well. This allows staff to brush up on topics before and after their sessions.

This can be useful if there are employees who need a bit longer to absorb the subject matter. Your materials don’t need to be endless lists of documents, as you can design colorful powerpoints with plenty of images. You can even include question and answer sections that test topic knowledge.

This technique can be an excellent way to give staff confidence in their ability to stick to workplace safety regulations. You may find they are happier in your training sessions and more willing to involve themselves in group discussions.

Bring a Sense of Fun to Your Employee Safety Training

There is no doubt that employee safety training is a serious topic, but this doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun during your sessions. Encouraging staff to participate and enjoy the process can help them learn more effectively.

It may also stop them from dreading safety training days. You could even find employees look forward to an entertaining few hours of training as a break from their usual routine.

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