Why Safety Training?
Thousands of work-related injuries and deaths can be attributed to one very big issue: a lack of proper safety training. Not only will proper safety training protect employees from incidents, it is also required by law that OSHA compliant safety training be provided by all employers for their employees.
Safety training is essential in helping employees understand what health risks and safety hazards are associated with their specific work location or job type.
Employee Safety and Health
Adequate safety training should provide employees with information on how to handle safety hazards. In knowing the correct information, employees will be more able to avoid hazards and incidents and keep themselves safe. Safety training should contain information should such as:
- How to report hazards to a supervisor
- How to file a report with OSHA
- Employees rights when it comes to hazards in the workplace
- How to minimize or eliminate a hazard in their workspace
In knowing all of the correct information, employees can utilize it to keep themselves and others safe while at work. Hazard prevention is the key when it comes to employee safety.
The Importance of Hazard Prevention
From a busy construction site, to a quiet office job, all workplaces come with their own unique hazards. Health and safety risks are everywhere and in order for employees to stay safe, they must learn all they can about hazard prevention.
Hazard prevention is all about the ability to recognize, report, and minimize or eliminate hazards in the workplace. It is also about being able to put safety first, no matter what. It is very easy to overlook a risk, especially when it is small. But even though a risk may seem minimal or non-consequential, it does not mean that it should be ignored. Some examples of easily overlooked safety risks are:
- Slips and falls
- Unsecure equipment
- Unraveled cords that obstruct the walkway
If hazards in the workplace are ignored or go unnoticed, the chances of an incident occurring increase. This in turn means that the chances of an injury or fatality taking place also increase. This is why being able to recognize, report, and eliminate hazards is so important.
What do Online Courses Entail?
Because safety training is so important, it should be delivered to employees in a way that is organized, learning-efficient, and adaptable for employees and employers. There is no better way to do this than by utilizing online safety courses for employee safety training.
Online safety courses are automated learning programs that are designed to train employees on precautionary processes and procedures. These procedures are then used to help mitigate risk or the chance of injury or fatality on the job. It is also a form of compliance training delivered to protect the company and its employees.
OSHA believes that computer-based training programs can be used as a part of an effective safety and health training program to satisfy their safety training standards and regulations. Here at Safety Provisions, our team works hards to provide you with online courses that are engaging, efficient, and made to better the safety training process.
Why are E-learning Courses Better?
Traditionally, OSHA Aligned safety training involves herding every employee into a room at a convenient time and lecturing them with some kind of visual aid. With the internet and its abilities growing every day, online courses are becoming more popular every year.
There are many benefits that come hand in hand with e-learning courses. Many of these benefits don’t only assist the employees but also the employer providing the course. The reasons why online courses are a better training option are as follows:
- Organized and time reducing
- Learning efficient
- Extremely affordable
- Adaptable for the individual
- Tailored content for specific employees, jobs, tasks, skill sets, or experience
Learning Management System
The first reason as to why online courses are beneficial to both employees and employers is that online courses are provided to companies through a platform called a learning management system. Learning management systems help to keep everything about the safety course organized and clear.
Through the learning management system, employees are able to keep track of how far along they are in the course. Some of these systems also provide a way for employers to track the progress of their employees.
This organizational aspect also allows for an employee to take a practical evaluation directly after the course is finished, while the information is still fresh in the learner’s mind. If an employee were to fail the evaluation, they are able to immediately go back through the course to review any information they might have missed.
The learning management system provides employees with the ability to stop and start at their leisure. They no longer have to sit down for hours on end learning safety information from their employer. Because of this, online courses are much more time-efficient compared to in-person training.
Does Online Safety Training Work?
Online training courses are proven to be more efficient in all stages of the training process when compared to in-person training. There are many aspects of online courses that appeal to the learner’s mind in a way that in-person training does not.
The effectiveness of safety training taught by a supervisor or employer is solely based on the teaching skills of the instructor. This means the employees will learn nothing if the trainer does not have adequate teaching skills. Compare this to online courses that tend to keep the learner’s mind engaged throughout the training which helps the individual to process the information and retainit.
However, remembering information is very different from learning it. And if an employee does not remember how to correctly avoid or handle a hazard in the workplace, they are going to be hurt or killed. According to the Research Institute of America, online training has retention rates of 25 – 60 %while the rates for classroom training is only around 8 – 10%. This goes to show that online training courses are more likely to help employees learn and retain all the safety information they need to stay safe at work.
Another way that online courses work well for companies is that an online course is uniform. It will keep up with OSHA standards and provide all of the necessary information for everyone who uses it. This makes it easier for companies that have employees all over the country, working in different locations and in different time zones. All the employees will learn the information and it won’t be dependent on the teaching skills of a supervisor.
A Cost-Effective Safety Education
Another wonderful benefit of online safety training for companies is that online courses are much more cost-effective. Statistics show that employers save 50 – 70% of their training budget when they use online courses.
Safety Training For The Individual
Everyone is different and therefore learns in different ways and at a different pace. The most effective way to keep safety at the forefront of all employees’ minds is to help them learn it in a way they can understand it.
E-learning provides employees with the ability to learn at their own pace and at leisure. Online courses also provide space for employees to improve through tools that help learners keep track of their progress and see where they are at. Online courses are flexible and have no time constraints. This is perfect for companies or individuals who have very busy work schedules.
Another thing that deserves to be mentioned is that many online courses provide different variants of the same course to work well for any employee who may need certain learning accommodations. Some of these different variants could include:
- Spanish courses
- Fully-narrated courses
- Fully on-screen courses
Necessary Learning Course Topics
Due to how time-consuming in-person training is, it is very common for employees to be involved in learning things that have no relevance to their specific task or job.
With e-learning, course designers can break material into specific learning modules. With these modules, employers can assign the right course or combination of courses to each employee. This way employees only receive information that is directly relevant to their experience, skillset, responsibilities, and job context.
Our Online Courses
Here at Safety Provisions, our online safety training courses come with all of the previously mentioned benefits and so much more! Not only are our online courses convenient and efficient, they also come with any teaching and learning materials that a company might need. Some of these materials are:
- A PowerPoint presentation full of necessary, curated information
- A reference manual for learning employees
- Toolbox Trainings that can be utilized for refresher trainings
- A written exam and answer key
- A practical evaluation form to test employee knowledge
- A certificate of completion template that can be customized to fit employee needs
- Many other helpful documents – OSHA regulations, accident profiles, news clip, safety posters and so much more!
Reach out to our customer support team for more information!