How To Create Engaging Health and Safety Training

On Thursday 25th August 3B’s Managing Director, Mat Bewley, delivered a Learning and Performance Institute webinar with Ian Cooke, Head of Corporate and Consumer Services at NEBOSH. The webinar looked at how to create engaging health and safety training that delivers real impact.

The importance of client and training provider engagement

In ‘Learning Impact: How to get the most from your training’, Mat explored the importance of client and training provider engagement in the development of training and outlined different ways organisations can measure learning impact and how to demonstrate return on investment.

Mat outlined how important it is for both the training provider and the client to fully engage in the whole process. From the initial understanding of need through design and delivery to ensure the training achieves the key aims.

Mat said: “As a training provider we aim to deliver world class training that improves the clients business by engaging the whole company in maintaining the health and safety of their workforce. A process of engagement with all the key stakeholders , including delegates, in the design of training helps us understand the business need, deliver the expected outcomes and provide solutions that are holistic and impactful.”

Engaging key stakeholders

Making sure everyone, from mangers to delegates, will engage is key to designing effective training. At 3B Training, we take the client through the following process:

Clarify the business needs

• Understand why the business requires training and at what level
• Clarify what impact the business requires and set outcomes that will deliver them

Clarify the learning goals of the delegate

• This helps us align content and delivery methods to engage with the learners
• Helps align what the delegate needs and the client needs

Build company engagement into the design process

• We work with the wider team on designing content i.e. HR or HSE teams
• Align training by including company processes
• Include company history to build on success
• We will always align goals with current legislation
• Involve the tutor not only in the design but also the initial scoping

Testing the training and implementing feedback

When it comes to delivery, once we agree the training plan we will always ensure that we run a pilot with 360 feedback from delegates and key stakeholders. This ensures that the key aims are being met before rolling the course out.

This ensures that everybody who is engaged in the project is able to see their impact and that the course will ultimately achieve for the business the outcomes the initial brief outlined.

This feedback is not preserved for the pilot, it is important that we build in continuous feedback upon delivery, to ensure all goals continue to be met. This allows for appropriate adjustment to be made and for the impact to delivered.

Impact review

Upon completion we would then require a full impact review. This will assess the following:

Has behaviour changed?

• Have we impacted on the working methods of the delegates to enable them to work safely?

What do the statistics look like after the training? For example:

• Has the number of incidents dropped?
• Are improvements to working practices clear and obvious?
• Are operatives using key learning outcomes in their work?

Follow up training and business wide changes

• The review will highlight where you may need a follow up or additional training
• This will highlight if we can action anything else to ensure outcomes are met
• It will provide further engagement with delegates and stakeholders in the process

Examples of the process in action

Mat provided an example to highlight how this process can work by using an example of a company that highlighted an issue around the use of respiratory protective equipment (RPE):

“A client came to us following issues reported of staff not having or using adequate RPE in areas where dust was being created. They wanted to provide RPE tests and training for staff.

We recommended a full assessment of the issue to enable us to understand how best to implement tests and training. This ensures all those coming into contact with dust would be protected.

The client chose instead to send all those it felt required a test to us. So, we completed RPE tests only on delegates that were sent to the training centre.

The impact was that not all those that where coming into contact with dust where sent for tests. This led to the company being issued with a HSE improvement notice for a delegate who wasn’t trained and not wearing correct RPE.

The client them came back to 3B and asked that we fully assess who needed tests and we were able ensure all those impacted where tested correctly, this include operatives and those working in the same areas.

In this instance, we could have helped them avoid the HSE improvement notice if we had been able to work with them, their operatives, and staff to understand the issue properly and plan the training appropriately with those involved.”

Summary of the process

The above example highlights Mat’s point about how important it is for both the training provider and the client to fully engage in the whole process. From initial understanding of need, through design and delivery to ensure the engaging health and safety training achieves the key aims.

We have many instances where this has proved effective both for the delegates and our delivery teams. Subsequently providing world class outcomes for our clients.

You can watch the full webinar here:

You can find out more information about our training courses online. If you would like to speak to a member of the team to discuss your training needs call 0330 912 0650. You can also email [email protected].