Under OSHA regulations, employers are required to provide effective training and safety information in a language that employees understand. It has at least a dozen standards with training requirements, all reinforcing the same idea: the first step to a safe workplace is a well-trained workplace.
But first, you have to know what training to offer–and what benefits it brings to the table.
How can safety training help prepare employees? And how can you ensure you’ve chosen the most effective training options? Here’s what employers should know.
Types of Safety Training
Safety training suffers from several common misconceptions, like the notion that it must be offered by OSHA-certified professionals, or that it has to be offered weekly. In reality, you have a fair amount of flexibility with safety training, and quite a lot of options to choose from.
There are safety training options for pretty much every safety issue under the sun, from common ones (like fire safety) to highly specialized offerings (like scaffolding safety or biohazards). Generally, you can find safety training options broken up by discipline or industry, with further specialization based on the type of work in question.
How Can Safety Training Help Prepare Employees?
How can safety training help prepare employees? The better question is how it can’t prepare employees.
Because safety training options are so broad, a strong safety training course can prepare your employees for almost any safety situation they may face on the job. You can provide safety training for practically every individual task that your employees encounter, but you’ll see the largest benefits when selecting safety training for high-risk tasks.
It can even help build a strong organizational culture to reinforce positive safety practices over time.
Basically, safety training prepares employees to handle whatever safety situation gets thrown their way. This is especially important when they have to deal with an unfamiliar task or they’re hit with a surprise–strong safety training ensures that they have good practices to reinforce them.
Choosing the Right Safety Training to Prepare Employees
The best place to start when choosing safety training is to study the applicable regulations. Your organization is subject to regulations at the federal, state, and local levels, some of them generalized and some of them industry-specific.
Once you identify all the generalized regulations that apply to you, break your workplace down into specialized areas. For example, a regular office worker needs different training than a warehouse worker or a forklift operator. Itemize jobs and tasks so that it’s easy to figure out which regulations apply, then choose training based on regulations.
The Training You Need for Safety Success
How can safety training help prepare employees? In short, if you train employees to be ready for unsafe situations, they’ll be ready for action if those situations ever arise.
The good news? With our safety training software, it’s easier than ever to manage your entire safety training program from one powerful dashboard, with easy tools to track employee completion and performance so that your employees always have the knowledge they need.
Ready to invest in training you can count on? Get in touch today to learn more about how our software can help.
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