If you're reading this article, you know that any decent health and safety training manual has to include information such as personal protective equipment (PPE), emergency evacuation, incident reporting and so on.
On August 5, 1997, Korean Air airplane Flight 801, crashed killing 228 people.
As a safety content producer, I get the rare chance to look at countless standard operating procedures from a variety of large companies.
We use these documents to write clear, friendly scripts, in order to produce training videos that will engage, increase learner understanding and recall. Nearly, 95% of the time, these standard operating procedures are really hard to read and understand. And they're very often wrong.
According to the the research paper "Relative Effectiveness of Worker Safety and Health Training Methods" from the American Journal of Public Health in February 2006, engaging safety training is three times more effective than the least engaging methods in promoting knowledge and skill acquisition. In addition, the most engaging methods of safety training are, on average, most effective in reducing negative outcomes such as accidents.
In the book, A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink, he compares both the left and right hemispheres of the brain and discussed that you need to include both hemispheres when creating anything new.
So your company has finally decided to systemise your safety induction training and you're in charge of sorting it all out.
Trainers often worry about how to create engaging company training for staff.
Inductions represent the most teachable moment companies have with new starters. They are an ideal time to align staff and contractors with what your company stands for and how you like to do business.
Companies often tell us that they are frustrated by how hard it is to engage staff with training.
We all remember as kids having to stand up in front of the classroom and do a "Show and Tell" session to the class about our newest toy.