Employers looking to keep a competitive edge must practice training and retraining your employees. This should not be looked at as a chore because it is essential to growing your business and providing a safe work environment. Injuries can make a big impact on employee morale and on your bottom line. You will need to retrain your employees when new methods or equipment are introduced or when jobs for which employees have been trained are phased out. In addition, it is important to train and retrain your team because it can improve safety, Increase employee loyalty, productivity, and boost morale. Routine work can dull alertness and relaxed attitudes can replace the caution that existed when the job was new and interesting. In many jobs the same route is traveled daily over the same roads or the same tasks are repeated with little conscious thought. Without some periodic reawakening to the ever-present hazards, lethargy deepens and increases the odds of an accident.
Workers may not always recognize the importance of safety training or think of it as unnecessary because they’ve “been doing it for years.” But an important benefit of periodic safety training is the reminder that a danger can exist and the no one is immune to accidents. Therefore, it is important for workers to understand the purpose of the training session, why it will be useful to them, and what can result from not following safety rules and procedures.
Safety training should be organized so that the material is presented will match the steps that should be taken on the job. Make sure every worker understands the training material. Insist on questions from trainees after a session to tell you what did or didn’t sink in, this will let you know what has to be reviewed again. If there’s a general lack of understanding of hazards or safety rules and practices, schedule another safety meeting or plan a refresher course for a later date.
Employees should be able to immediately practice and apply new knowledge and skills. If workers don’t understand safety training information well enough to use it on the job, the training has not been effective. There should be immediate feedback if workers are doing their job safely or not. Supervisors should watch employees perform their jobs and question them, to identify what they do, or don’t know.
If you have any questions concerning any information in this bulletin, please contact the LL Roberts Group PEO Risk Management department (toll free) at 877.878.6463.
