Health and Safety e-learning is taking the world of training by storm. It’s no surprise either. As a fast-paced digital world, there’s no better way to train employees and get them up to speed. Whether you’re a small company looking for new ways to train your employees or a large corporation looking for a new way to train your entire workforce, WHS e-learning can save you any injuries, time and money. That being said, there are many pitfalls that many companies overlook. If you’re new to the workplace health and safety training world, you’re not alone. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know to get your program up and running safely and effectively.
Base your health and safety training program on a solid foundation
No matter how good your health and safety training program is, it’s meaningless if it doesn’t lead to positive change in the workplace. You need to be aware of your employees’ current knowledge and skills and make sure they’re moving in the right direction. Why? Because not only will you be re-training your staff, but you’ll also be re-training your managers. It’s important to make sure that you’re basing your WHS/OHS training on a solid foundation. This will help avoid common pitfalls and ensure that your program is as effective as possible. Your foundation can be broken down into three key areas: Competencies, Competencies, and Competencies!
Make training part of your company safety culture
Every company has their own unique health and safety culture. The type of environment you have will largely determine how you train your employees. Whether you have a casual corporate culture or a more formal one that stresses a specific set of rules, you can incorporate workplace health and safety training into your company safety culture. Safety training can be an informative and have interesting topics. If you find that it has become strictly an administrative task, you might want to take a step back and consider if there’s a better way to get the information across. If you have a more formal corporate culture, you can make safety training a part of your morning announcements or health and safety meetings.
Plan for different learning styles
Health and Safety training is meant to be informative, but it’s also designed to be effective. You can’t just throw a bunch of information at your employees and expect them to absorb it. You need to make the information relevant, engaging, and easy to understand. To do this, you need to incorporate different learning styles. You can do this by using visuals such as infographics and videos, by breaking the information down into digestible pieces, and by making it relevant to your employees’ work environment. If you find that your employees struggle with certain elements of workplace health and safety training, don’t be afraid to break down the information and make it more accessible.
Set expectations with your employees
The best WHS training programs incorporate gamification and rewards. This can be done in many different ways, but one of the simplest ways is to make it part of your employee handbook. You can include a section in your employee handbook outlining the company’s health and safety standards and explain exactly what the rules are. If you want to incorporate a reward, try using a safety recognition program. This way, employees can earn points for completing safety tasks, such as reporting hazards or completing safety orientation. You can use these points to reward them with discounts on services or products, or even gift cards for a nearby restaurant.
Don’t be afraid to use gamification
Gamification is actually a great way to incorporate many different learning styles. It’s also a great way to motivate your employees to complete tasks and improve their knowledge of the company’s health and safety standards. Workplace health and Safety training can be boring. After all, the information itself is quite dry. But that’s why you need to use gamification. It can make the information more interesting and engaging, which will help keep your employees focused and on task. If you’re hesitant to incorporate gamification into your training program, don’t be. The health and safety consultants along with the specialist. instructional designers at Safetec Safety Solutions are able to develop and implement both face to face training and digital e-learning and VR training for any organisations requirements. This ensures that you have workplace safety consulting specialists on hand to answer any questions, go into more depth and to provide accurate information to ensure that you are not liable for miscommunication. Furthermore, you can create fun and interactive quizzes, leaderboards, and customized rewards. You can also create health and safety training programs that incorporate VR/3D, which can be another great way to gamify safety training programs. VR is great for organisation who are not able to adequately replicate work scenarios and allow for the user to be indulged in an immersive metaverse experience.
Use health and safety VR/3D for an added sensory component
Nowadays, you can get just about any virtual experience you desire. Virtual reality and augmented reality can be great ways to gamify your safety training programs. VR/3D can be a great way to give your employees a “virtual walkthrough” of infrastructures or processes. This can be especially useful if your company does a lot of field work, such as construction as it allows for muscle memory to develop while you’re “playing a game”. By walking through the process with a VR headset, your employees can learn about things like dig locations and how to safely walk through them. Augmented reality is another great way to incorporate AR into your safety training programs. You can use AR to bring real-world elements, like signage or GPS maps, into your training. This can help your employees visualize their surroundings, improving their situational awareness.
Wrapping Up
Safety training is a great way to keep employees informed and inspired. You can do this by incorporating different learning styles and rewarding positive behavior. WHS training doesn’t have to be boring or dull. We have discussed various ways in which your business can find great ways to gamify workplace health and safety training programs.
