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Reader Panel: Health and Safety Training |
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Written by Todd Phillips
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Tuesday, 21 November 2006 |
Health and Safety Training
What are the best practices?
There are many approaches to health and safety training, and this month we asked our reader panelists to share their experiences with the rest of our readers. We wanted to know about their training best practices, which methods work best, and whether training was reaching the ranks of senior management.
More than 90 of our reader panelists answered the online survey, and 100 per cent of them offered their comments and views on health and safety training, which proves that it's a topic of great interest.
When asked if their facility regularly trains employees in health and safety, 83 per cent said yes, and only 17 per cent said no.
The survey also found that more employers are investing more in training with 36 per cent of respondents saying that their health and safety training budget is increasing, 49 per cent reporting it is staying the same, and only 15 per cent report the budget is dropping.
We also asked some open-ended questions, including one about best practices. Here are a few comments:
“The best practice we have found is to review, review and review. When a course is conducted for the first time, let's face it the employee will not grasp what you are talking about especially in the mining industry.”
“We aim for a no excuse policy to not attend safety training.”
“We find that regular cyclic reminder by supervisors and safety committee members goes a long way to keeping awareness at a good level.”
“Short sessions seem to work best. Attention lags if training goes over 45 minutes.”
“We have established a training agenda for all new hires, and identified which of the courses (subjects) require a refresher, and at what frequency. Training is tracked in a database, which is then used to allow us to develop yearly training plans.”
What types of training does your firm now use?
o We use in-house trainers: 30.45 %
o We send people out to seminars /conferences / courses: 22.93 %
o We hire an expert to train at our facility: 16.92 %
o We use CDs, DVDs as training tools: 15.04 %
o We use online training courses: 11.28 %
o Other: 3.38 %
We also asked reader panelists: “Who leads the push for more safety training in your facility?” Not surprisingly, our readers say they are the ones driving training, with more than 56 per cent saying it is them, 19.1 per cent say it is senior managers and a disappointing 6.74 per cent say that nobody is leading the push. Also, almost 18 per cent listed “other” as the people driving the push. Readers also offered the following comments:
“Anybody in the company can lead the push for safety training.”
“Once again management sees people who promote health and safety as whiners or trouble makers.”
“We have a very aggressive joint health and safety committee that pushed the need for training.”
Perhaps the most provocative question, and one that tells the tale of the struggles that health and safety leaders face, is the question we posed about training for senior leaders. The question was: “In your opinion, do senior managers and executives get enough safety related training?”
Only 18 % of respondents answered yes, which means 82 per cent of our respondents feel that senior managers aren't getting the training they need. This is a significant finding, because perhaps therein lies an opportunity for changing a company, and a country's safety culture. There were dozens of great comments and here are a few samples:
“They always have no time for such activities.”
“They use their position to get out of it.”
“In our organization they often sit in on the training courses.”
“Most senior managers are self-taught as there is very little available that targets this group.”
“It is part of my business plan for this year to get senior management trained in the hopes there will be a greater degree of understanding of the importance of this training at the front line level.”
Finally, we asked our readers to wade in with some general comments, and they had a lot of thoughtful ideas and opinions to share.
“We are in Québec and find that suppliers often do not have French language labels on machine and machine parts and instruction manuals. When selling to Quebec this should be included for the safety of the francophone employees.”
“Since OHS is becoming a bigger issue each and every day, upper management is getting newsletters and news briefings on lawsuits and criminal penalties for other companies. It is opening their eyes. This is what all safety managers and coordinators need, for upper management to finally open their eyes.”
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