Safety Training’s 7 Deadly Sins (and 7 Simple Virtues)

Employees won’t work safely if your training manifests these 7 deadly sins:

1. Trainees don’t know what they’re supposed to learn in training sessions.
2. They don’t understand how what they’re learning is connected to their job.
3. They don’t think the training is important or affects them personally.
4. Trainees don’t care about improving safety performance.
5. They think management doesn’t care about safety.
6. They aren’t given time to ask questions and practice new skills.
7. Learning and retention of information isn’t properly evaluated and monitored.

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7 Safety Training Virtues

Employees will work safely if your training promotes these 7 simple virtues:

1. Each training session has specific objectives so that trainees know exactly what they are expected to learn.
2. Trainees understand why they are being trained—in other words, the practical application, how the training content is related to their job.
3. Trainees realize how the training session affects them personally—for example, making them safer, protecting their health, and allowing them to go home every day in one piece.
4. Trainees are motivated to care about safety and strive to improve safety performance because of a workplace culture that makes safety a priority.
5. Trainees know management cares about workplace safety because they hear it repeatedly and see it in action every day.
6. Training sessions are interactive, giving employees the opportunity to grasp information, practice skills, and ask any questions they have about the training material.
7. Training is always evaluated by a written appraisal or practical application, and supervisors follow up on the job to make sure employees are using what they learned in training to perform their work more safely.

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Can you picture safety training in effective, 7-minute sessions? Get the details.

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Ready-Made Checklists

If you need assistance assessing safety needs and planning training, then you need Safety Audit Checklists. In fact, this comprehensive safety and health resource provides a whole lot of very useful information about assessing and planning training.

For example, among other materials, Safety Audit Checklists provides you with a sample safety training planning grid and a sample safety training planning calendar that you can copy and use as is or customize for your training programs. In addition, you get a training needs assessment checklist and a training planning checklist.  

All told, this best-selling program provides you with more than 300 separate safety checklists keyed to three main criteria:

• OSHA compliance checklists, built right from the government standards in such key areas as HazCom, lockout/tagout, electrical safety, and many more.
• “Plaintiff attorney” checklists, built around those non-OSHA issues that often attract lawsuits.
• Safety management checklists that monitor the administrative procedures you need to have for topics such as OSHA 300 Log maintenance, training program scheduling and recording, and OSHA-required employee notifications. 

Make as many copies as you need for all your supervisors and managers, and distribute. What’s more, the entire program is updated annually. And the cost averages only about $1 per checklist.

If this method of ensuring a safer, more OSHA-compliant workplace interests you, we’ll be happy to make Safety Audit Checklists available for a no-cost, no-obligation, 30-day evaluation in your office. Just let us know, and we’ll be pleased to arrange it.

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