WHAT’S WRONG WITH SAFETY TRAINING . . . AND HOW TO FIX IT

Writing a good case study is similar to writing anything worth reading — you have to keep the reader interested and engaged — except that case studies differ from written descriptions in that case studies are designed to teach a lesson of some sort. But a well written case study is only part of what makes the tool valuable.

How you facilitate a case study is at least as important as how well the case study is written. While case studies can be used as part of individual or group work, I prefer dividing the class into small groups and having the participants engage in discussion. When facilitating a case study have the participants in each group read the case and discuss the questions you’ve either included in your handouts or posted in the room. (You don’t want to just pose the questions unless you want to have to keep repeating the questions to throughout the exercise.)

Once each group has discussed the questions and arrived at a consensus have a group spokesperson share their responses with the entire class. The discussion of the case study in the entire group will allow you to gage the participants understanding of the points you’d hope to make by using the case study.

When it comes to evaluation there’s no substitute for a good experiential exercise (or simulation). An experiential exercise/simulation is a controlled environment where the learner can perform the skills without exposing themselves to real-life dangers that might be associated with performing the skills under the actual conditions that the participants will ultimately be expected to perform the skill.

Years ago, I worked as a security guard in a nuclear power plant. You can imagine how important safety was, and can probably understand how much safety training we had to compete. One course was on the PPE associated with entering a radioactive area. Obviously the instructor couldn’t take us into an actual radioactive area for training. The situation was even more complicated because while there were over 25 participants, there was only two sets of PPE available.

Despite these challenges the instructor managed to train us in the procedure for putting on the gear and taking it off. The instructor accomplished his objective by using a simple simulation. The instructor took us to an adjacent room where he had used masking tape to mark an area as “Radioactive”, he instructed us to (in pairs) demonstrate the proper procedure for putting on our imaginary gear, and then removing the gear.

The procedure for doing so was painfully specific with each piece of gear needed to be put on in a specific order. If while removing the gear we made a mistake, he would say, “congratulations, you are radioactive” and tell the offending participant to go to the end of the line. I still remember how much fun we had, but more importantly, 20 years later, I still remember how to don and remove a radiation suit! The exercise was more than just engaging, it was meaningful and effective.

RULE 4: SETUP AND DEBRIEF YOUR EXERCISES
“Okay, I’m gonna show a video” is typically training-speak for “nap time”. Remember the only reason we do ANYTHING in a training course is in support of a corresponding objective, so whenever you present a topic you need to set it up and debrief it. Let’s take that video for example, why are we showing it? What objective does viewing the video accomplish? Why should I as a participant watch the video?

If you don’t have answers to these questions then you probably shouldn’t be using video. When you set up an activity begin with the objective you hope to achieve. For example, if you are showing a video about confined space entry, you might introduce the video by saying, “we’re going to watch a short video on confined space entry. I think this video does a particularly nice job demonstrating the correct procedure for entering a confined space. A little later in the course we will be practicing entering a simulated confined space so you may want to pay particular attention to that portion of the video.”

After the exercise it is crucial that you debrief. A debrief is a way of deepening the participants understanding of the point you are making and helps them to retain the skill longer. When you debrief make sure you focus on the lesson that you want the participant to take away from the activity. A good debrief should encourage participants to interpret the exercise and to analyze what they have learned. I like to start with an open-ended question like, “what did you think of the video?”

The problem with a question like that is you are likely to get an emotional response like, “I didn’t like it” or “It was stupid”. Or you might get someone who critiques the production values. While these responses may not seem appropriate to our purposes, it allows the participants to get those feelings off their chest so that you can talk about more substantive topics. I like to follow with another open question like, “what did you learn from the video?”

Unless you ask the first question (what did you think of the video?) you are likely to get answers like “nothing”. It’s not that people will always react negatively to your activities, but allowing a vent question will relieve the stress of the people that DID react badly. If the group seems to have missed the point, you can gently steer the group back toward the concepts you want them to take away from the exercise.

RULE 5: DO TRAINING TO PROVIDE SKILLS, NOT MERELY ACHIEVE
Compliance. A lot of safety training is seen as a necessary evil by the organization and major a pain in the butt by the individual. How can you ever train people who honestly and ardently believe that they aren’t attending your training, they’re being subjected to it.

But we have to do safety training to comply with the law! We don’t have a choice; we have to present it and people have to attend it. While compliance is certainly an important part of why we do training, it MUST be secondary to protecting workers. There can never be a trade off between imparting skills necessary for workers to be safe and complying with a regulation.

Before accepting my current position I spent many years as head of training for a large, international manufacturer. Because we had locations in Asia, Europe, and throughout North America we were beset by varied and sometimes contradictory compliance requirements. In addition to governments, the executives over our operating units had training courses that they would decide were mandatory for ALL EMPLOYEES.