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How to Work out your Safety Induction Training Content

describe the imageSo your company has finally decided to systemise your safety induction training and you're in charge of sorting it all out.

Before we go into the actual safety training content, make sure that when designing your induction training you:

  • include a face to face component (eg: site tour, meet and greet),
  • have friendly, welcoming training (if you want to keep the new starter for a while, treat them really well),
  • include visually appealing training material to increase engagement.

For more information on how to design your training content, refer to some of the article links posted at the bottom of the post.

When designing your safety induction training program, there are some content items that you need to include.  Here is a brief checklist to help you get started.

1. Introduction - it goes without saying, but surprisingly there are companies that launch straight into their induction training without providing adequate information to the new starter on what the company actually does.  Remember, staff and contractors are walking, talking billboards for your company.  Anytime they are at a family BBQ on the weekends, they should be out there telling people what your organisation does.  Make sure they know what you do, why, how, where and when. (A little story - about 10 years ago we produced a marketing video for an engineering company.  While the marketing video helped the company to educate and sell more of it's complicated shipping products, the video also helped educate staff about what the company did.  Amazingly, as most of the shipping equipment was so complicated around one third of the staff didn't really know what the company made!)

2. Core Values (optional) - This section is really for  induction training that is not safety related.  If you are doing safety training, refer to 'Your Safety Values' below.  Great companies spend a lot of time indoctrinating new staff into the company values and culture.  Make sure you also explain what your company is about and your core values (read How to Engage Staff with your Core Values).

3. Your Safety Values - Senior leaders drive the safety culture of a company.  This is where you really need to include senior members to talk about the importance of safety at your company.  This needs to come from the heart.  Make it friendly and personal.  Remember, first impressions count!

4. Duty of Care - This is more of a legal nature, but always important to include with any safety training.

5. Site Safety Rules - Explain the main safety rules that you have.  Make sure they are written in positive, friendly language.  Refer to the  safety principles example from CSR Viridian (above).

6. Personal Protective Clothing - Show people the different types of safety clothes that they need to wear and explain the reasons why.

7. Other specific safety information - Depending upon your site, go through specific information about emergency evacuation, incident and injury notification, traffic management, hazardous materials and so on.  If you do not know the specific safety requirements, contact your local safety advisor or Government body.  Remember, it's important to demonstrate as many different aspects of safety information to help learners remember the information.

8. Summary - End your training in a friendly manner.  Summarise your core message.

Further reading:

10 Ways to Improve your Induction Training

Why Induction Training Programs are so important to Company Success

How to Improve the Effectiveness of Health and Safety Training

8 Essential Induction Tips for New Recruits

How Using Quizzes in Induction Training Improves New Starter Learning

How to get Senior Leaders more involved in Company Communication

How Corporate Story-telling improves Company Performance

Story-Telling: An Effective way to improve Food Safety Training

How to make your Training Materials More Positive

How a Great Induction Process makes a Great Company