How to Use Online Safety Training: 11 Easy Ideas

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November 14, 2016

Resource: Blog Industry: Industrial
Tags: Safety, Vector LMS and Training Management

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Curious about online safety training but not sure how you can use it at your workplace?

That's not unusual.

In this article, we've listed eleven easy ways for you to take advantage of online safety training as part of your overall safety training program at work. And it wasn't hard to make the list! Plus, there are more reasons, too--we invite you to add your own ideas at the bottom of this article. What's worked well for you?

Click to read the list below.

You might also find a LOT of stuff interesting and helpful on your online safety training search in the guide below.

Convergence Training are safety and safety training experts.

Click the links below to learn more about how we can help you.

Download our FREE Online Safety Training Buyer's Guide Checklist

11 Ways to Use Online Safety Training At Your Workplace

Some of our readers--and eventual customers--are brand new to online safety training. And so they wonder how to they can use it.

So let's take a look at some of the ways you can use online safety training like the courses in our online health and safety training course library and like the materials shown video sample below.

1. From Zero to One Hundred...In No Time Flat

Some companies, especially smaller companies, really don't have a safety training program in place. Or, in other cases, the safety training program is pretty much an ad-hoc series of repeated interpersonal conversations.

By making the online safety training plunge, and partnering with a safety training provider that can make a large library of safety training courses available to them at the snap of a finger, companies like this can ramp up their training effectiveness in a hurry--and improve their compliance and incident rates accordingly (compliance goes up, incident rates go down).

2. Go Off-the-Shelf and Get Custom

Companies can get off-the-shelf online safety training from a safety training provider and then work with that same provider to have custom, site-specific training materials created to match their unique safety training needs. The combination of off-the-shelf and custom provides excellent financial value and safety improvement.

3. Buy It and Make It

If you've got some safety training creation skills in-house, you can get the off-the-shelf training from a safety training provider and then make the custom training on your own.

We've even got an article and a webinar that shows you how to make your own custom online safety training courses.

This approach lets you focus on your safety training creation strengths while essentially outsourcing your safety training creation weaknesses to a safety training provider that can do it better for you.

4. Plug the Gaps

Some company may have a pretty good safety training program in place, but just need to fill a few holes here and there.

Working with a safety training provider with hundreds of titles can help you fill those gaps quickly.

5. Blend, Baby, Blend

One thing training experts recommend is using a "blended learning approach" in which you use training of lots of different "types," "formats," "delivery methods," or "media," including instructor-led, field-based training, written materials, hands-on exercises, online training, and more.

In fact, ANSI Z490.1, the national standard of Criteria for Accepted Practices in Safety, Health, and Environmental Training, recommends just that. And so do we. And so do the famous, evidence-based learning experts Dr. Ruth Colvin Clark and Dr. Will Thalheimer.

6. Flip It!

One common way to blend training is use the flipped-training model. In this model, you deliver the first part of training to employees online. This may explain the basics of a particular safety issue. Employees can complete the online portion on their own, at their own speed, on their own schedule. Then, you bring a group of employees together into a classroom-setting or out into the field for questions, practice, demonstrations, and evaluations.

Save your valuable--and probably limited--instructor-led training time for when it's most needed and helpful. Use the online component to handle the introduction/knowledge transfer.

7. Get Onboard

Online safety training course can be a great way to provide safety onboarding to new hires, or to prepare a worker who's been moved or transferred to a new position or work area.

Using online safety training this way is a great way to set the foundation.

Read more about using online training tools for safety onboarding.

8. Don't Cross Your Wires (Second Verse, Not the Same as the First)

If you deliver instructor-led training to different groups of people time and time again, it's inevitable that you'll wind up telling people different things over time.

And that's even more true if you've got more than one person delivering training at your site, or if you've got different trainers at different sites. Or if you've got an instructor-led trainer who doesn't really believe the official company line.

But you don't have to worry about that with online safety training. You get the same, consistent safety message every time (until you want to change it).

9. Expand Your Reach

Safety managers and safety trainers often struggle getting their training message to all workers.

Maybe they're on multiple shifts. Maybe they're at multiple locations. Maybe some work remotely. Maybe their job sites change frequently.

Whatever the reason, online safety training can help extend your training reach. If your workers an access the Internet, they can complete their training anywhere, anytime, 24/7.

10. Refresh and Renew

Online safety training is a great way to provide refresher training every year, two years , or three years.

Your workers can complete it when it fits in their schedule; they can take it at their own speed; and you can test them to see if they understood.

11. Get Mobile!

It's probably true that you and all your workers (or nearly all) use smart phones and other mobile devices daily.

You bank with mobile. You shop with mobile. You navigate with mobile.

Wouldn't it be nice for your employees to be able to take training on mobile devices?

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Wouldn't you like to record field-based training demonstrations on a mobile device like the one below?

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And don't fool yourself about generational changes. 25 percent of the workforce is made up of Millennials, and they've been mobile since they were born.

Conclusion: The Many Uses of Online Safety Training

Hope that gives you some ideas about how you can use online safety training at your workplace.

Got some ideas of your own? Leave them in the comments field below. Same with questions, too.

Have a good one, and feel free to download our guide to effective EHS training!

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