Top 10 Tips for More Effective EHS Training

You've just settled in for a safety training session. The instructor greets the class, distributes some hand-outs and begins teaching. No, wait. He's reading. From a 20-page, single-spaced document. Without pausing or looking up. Worse, he's showing no signs of stopping.

That scenario can be taken from the nightmares of students enrolled in EHS training everywhere. So how do you break the cycle of boring, bland or just plain bad training methods? EHS Today spoke with some experts in the field to discover their top training tips.

1. IDENTIFY YOUR LEARNING OBJECTIVES

This was, by far, the point experts hit on most: structuring the course in a deliberate, focused way will guide both the students and instructor through the training smoothly and efficiently.

“You need to have a blueprint,” explains Judy Jarrell, Ph.D., the director of health and safety training at the University of Cincinnati. “You need to have some kind of plan to follow.”

Learning objectives, Jarrell continues, should focus on what the student needs to know or be able to perform after the training is complete. If the training is meant to show students how to use fall protection equipment, for example, they should be able to independently execute the entire process of donning and using a fall harness by the conclusion of the course without any outside assistance. Without a plan, trainers might have a more difficult time getting their students to that point.

“Learning objectives will focus us as trainers,” Jarrell says. She also suggests sharing those objectives with the students to set their expectations and take away any anxiety.

Tom Ouimet, CIH, founder and principal of OEHS2, agrees that trainers must start with good instructional design. Unfortunately, he says, some EHS trainers open a standards book and teach the information they find there, in the order it appears in the book — first definitions, then exposure limits, and so on. There's no faster way to put the class to sleep.

“Organize your training material around a mental model the worker knows and understands,” he suggests. “So organize their material in sequence of how they do their job. That makes it easier for them to assimilate the information.”

2. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

This tip goes hand-in-hand with developing learning objectives because it's difficult to map out the progression and structure of a course without understanding your audience. Learning objectives, Jarrell says, must focus “first and foremost on what the needs are for that particular group of learners.”

According to Shane Austin, CSP, PureSafety's director of safety and risk management, PureSafety first determines the target audience for a course, whether it's upper-level management, a foreman group or workers in the field. After establishing the audience, he says, trainers then can turn to applicable regulations and standards to develop what needs to be covered in the course.

“Start with knowing your people and where they are,” Jarrell says. “Be sure you know your trainees well enough to know how much information they have already so we can build on it.”

That also means recognizing when a topic isn't vital to your group of learners. An OSHA 10-hour outreach course may require trainers to cover fall protection, but if this particular group of trainees never works at height, it's not as imperative for them to have in-depth training. Instead, Jarrell says, use the required time period on this topic to raise awareness on the issue, and then move on to something more relevant.

3. ADJUST FOR ATTITUDES

Trainers must concentrate on more than just conveying the information — they also have to be aware of how students' attitudes can affect their ability to learn.

“In our kind of training, attitudes are a big deal,” Jarrell says. “That is what's going to determine, once [students] are back on the job, whether or not they employ the safe work practices that you're teaching them.”

Jarrell goes on to stress that students are not born with their attitudes; they learn them. “We learn attitudes, and so we as instructors can have some impact on it,” she points out. “I'm not going to say we can change attitudes in 10 hours, but we can move them along that continuum a little bit to a more positive attitude toward employing the safe work practices that you're teaching.”

4. ENGAGE AND INTERACT

Students who are bored, passive or apathetic won't learn as much. And that means the important safety skills covered in the training won't transfer to their work. “You have to engage the learner,” stresses Austin.

He says that in typical classroom training, some students naturally will be active and involved, while others may sit quietly in the corner, disinterested. But in online training, he points out, “you're actually forced to be engaged. There's no hiding.” PureSafety online courses include brain teasers and other interactive elements to prompt each student to become involved in the training.

Ouimet adds that some trainers tend to drone on without interaction. “I think with adults, you've got to create good opportunities for them to participate and talk about their experiences,” he says. Some trainers, he notes, are fearful of losing control of a presentation, and therefore don't encourage participation.

“But if it's set up well and the presenter has good skills, you can direct that experience [to] reinforce a key point,” he explains. “And since it's coming from a peer, it's often better accepted.”

5. VISUALS MATTER

No one relishes the thought of having an instructor stand at the front of the classroom and do nothing but lecture for two hours. Visual aids are an important component of training and can help clarify and enhance the curriculum.

“It must be visually relatable, whether in classroom or online,” Austin says of EHS training. Jarrell adds that visuals can make the instruction clear; without that clarity, students will not learn.

Ouimet cautions that not just any visuals will do — they must be the right visuals, used in the right way. “When you create visual evidence, it has to be very specific,” he says. “Don't use it as a distracter.” Overloading on visuals, he explains, can be confusing and disorienting.

Ouimet also suggests the assertion-evidence approach, a technique he says the profession hasn't yet fully embraced. Instead of using a PowerPoint slide with a title and then a bulleted list, this approach uses visual evidence to support an assertion. The assertion — such as “Flammable solvents ignite below 73 degrees,” is placed where the title would go, and then the rest of the slide shows a video of solvents exploding. This focuses the students on one key concept and demonstrates that it is correct. According to Ouimet, research shows this approach is “significantly better at conveying information than a traditional PowerPoint bullet-point slide.”

“It's important to create a rich experience for people,” he explains. “And a rich experience involves good visuals.”