Step 5: Conduct the training. Think of the training session as an important meal. And like a memorable meal, its presentation must be as appealing as its taste. A successful session will have both “sizzle and steak”—style and content—with lots of participation, give-and-take, questions, examples, opinions, and enthusiasm from the trainer and trainees. To help achieve success, trainers may:
- Provide an overview of the material to help trainees focus and pace themselves.
- Explain why a subject is being covered.
- Relate new information or skills to the trainees’ own jobs and experience.
- Personalize and customize the information with names and specifics: “If Sam here locked and tagged out the compressor, and Gina took off the tag …” or “If Joe left a file cabinet open, and Kathy tripped over it ….”
- Reinforce training by continually summarizing objectives and key points.
The final point is critical but all too often underemphasized. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that workers not only receive the training but also understand it. Ensure that everyone “gets it” by rephrasing and summarizing at intervals during the session.
No time to write safety meeting materials? You don’t need to with the 50 prewritten safety meeting modules in BLR’s Safety Meeting Repros program. All meetings are ready to use, right out of the box. Try it completely at our expense! Get the details.
Step 6: Evaluate the program’s effectiveness. After the training is finished, how can you tell if it has done any good? Receiving the training is not enough; employees must understand it and integrate it into daily practice. To evaluate whether this is happening:
- Quiz employees on the material after each session.
- Solicit opinions from the trainees through questionnaires or informal discussions.
- Ask supervisors if they’ve noticed any changes in attitudes or practices.
- Chart your company’s accident reports and look for trends.
Step 7: Improve the program. If you find through testing, feedback, and observation that the training was not effective, it’s clearly time to investigate further. Important questions to ask both trainers and trainees are:
- Was too much of the material already known?
- Was any material confusing or distracting?
- Was anything missing?
- What did trainees learn, and what did they fail to learn?
Whether you need to make changes, always document that the training has occurred. Also include dates, meeting times, meeting places, and other specifics.
Examine Safety Meeting Repros completely at our expense. Send no money. Take no risk. Get more info.
How We Can Help
Included with Safety Meeting Repros are 50 completely turnkey safety meeting modules, each responsive to a key OSHA regulation, with trainee materials in reproducible form. Just click the outline items off as you proceed through the meeting, and you won’t miss a single point of importance. Then follow up with the fully prepared quiz (with instantly available answers) and illustrated handouts that also come with each lesson. You’ve completed a full training cycle, with little more work than running a copier, and at a cost equivalent to under $6 a session.
Pardon our enthusiasm in saying that there’s no way to appreciate how much this program can ease your training task without looking it over. You can do so at no cost (we even pay any return shipping) and no risk. Just click here and we’ll be happy to arrange a trial run, at our expense.