In many cases, safety training isn’t the most entertaining activity for your employees. The issue is, if engagement falls, knowledge retention declines. This can leave them ill-prepared to address or avoid workplace hazards, leading to higher injury rates.
Luckily, there are things you can do to boost engagement, ensuring crucial information is heard and absorbed. If you aren’t sure where to begin, here are some training tips that will keep your employees engaged.
TempStaff’s Tips For Keeping Your Employees Engaged
Mix Up Your Approach
If your safety training is nothing more than a PowerPoint presentation and some text-only handouts, engagement is going to be a problem. Lengthy lectures or dry reading materials aren’t going to capture your employees’ attention, particularly if the session lasts for hours.
By mixing up your approach, you can prevent boredom. While you can use some oral presentations and reading material, couple that with lively discussions, quiz-based games, infographics, roleplaying, hands-on demonstrations, and videos.
If you switch up your approach regularly, your employees won’t be able to guess what’s coming next, keeping them more engaged. Plus, it gives you a chance to address multiple learning styles, boosting knowledge retention, too.
Embrace Microlearning
While it may be more convenient to schedule a single safety training session and cover everything, that isn’t ideal for engagement. Often, a microlearning approach is more effective, as it allows you to divide complex topics into bite-sized chunks, making the information more digestible.
Consider breaking your safety training into a series of short sessions. Focus on a single concept during each meeting, and be concise when you deliver the details.
Consider Incentives
Sometimes, the easiest way to boost engagement is through rewards. By offering an incentive, you give your employees an extra reason to focus on the material.
You can use a variety of approaches to pull this off. For example, you could provide every employee with a reward for scoring above a certain mark on a follow-up quiz. Alternatively, you could create a team-based competition focused on a safety idea, where the group that performs best receives the incentive.
Companies also have the option to take it further. For instance, you could offer rewards for exhibiting safe behaviors during the course of their workday. This keeps safety at the top of everyone’s mind, making safety a part of your overall culture.
Make Room for Reinforcement
Ideally, safety should be part of an ongoing narrative. After you touch on topics during your safety training sessions, reinforce the points frequently. Tap on them quickly during morning standup gatherings, weekly update emails, or similar common communication points. That way, safety is part of every discussion.
Similarly, placing simple signage in key areas of your workplace can make a difference. When you put reminders in high-traffic areas, they’ll get noticed. Even a quick glance can bring the topic to the employee’s mind, helping it stick longer.
Looking to Add Employees to Your Team? Get in Touch With Tempstaff Today!
Keeping your employees engaged in training will keep them safe and take your business to the next level. If you are growing your team or looking for great new employees the staff at TempStaff wants to hear from you. Contact TempStaff today.
