Improve work place safety with right induction training

I was reviewing the induction training of a client the other day. We were going to deliver only the soft skills and behavioural part of their induction training, but they wanted us to review the entire training and see if it needed any improvements. And guess what I found. The part on process training was incomplete. It did not lay much focus on workplace safety.

Workplace safety training is extremely important for organisations that have environments that could be unsafe for their staff. However, the question is, how many of us actually ensure that we cover safety training in the induction training itself in the required depth?

While there are some organisations that definitely give a lot of importance to it in the induction training, some actually do it after a few months or even after some kind of tragedy occurs! My question is, why do we wait for something to go wrong. Why can’t we tell our employees exactly what needs to be done before they touch the floor?

Apart from the timing of such sessions, I also believe that such induction trainings need to create the right environment for learning. For example, consider a session which is simply a download of information. Do you really think it can have the impact that it needs to have? Do you really think employees are going to absorb completely what has been taught and remember it when the time comes for application?

Induction trainings need to be made more experiential in nature. They should be able to simulate the unsafe environment and make employees get an experience of why safety training is so important. It should be interactive and make employees come up with the actions that they need to take to ensure safety rather than the trainer feeding them with ready-made information. This increases their buy-in levels, seriousness as well as retention levels.

Precaution is a top priority. And if understood clearly as to why it’s needed, will definitely reduce or even prevent future disasters. And how best to do it? With experiential, interactive corporate trainings that covers all the required aspects in the correct way and detail.

So, I urge all of you to relook at your induction trainings. Are you covering all that needs to be covered? Are you using the right methodologies? After attending the session, are your employees going to be fully equipped to set foot on the floor safely?