Safety trainings are an important part of safety compliance. With so many options available to assign to your team, how do you decide to go forward? We have some best practices for how to implement trainings.
Don't assign everything to be finished in a short amount of time. We all need time to actually learn and process information for the sake of retention. If you plan to assign multiple courses, consider spreading them out with only 2-3 courses due per week.
When in doubt about where to start, enroll users in a Workplace Orientation course. Orientation courses typically provide an overview of a wide variety of workplace safety topics. They can be valuable not only to your newest employees, but also to your seasoned employees as a refresher.
Assign training courses that are relevant to the appropriate employees. If your team is working at a location that doesn't have confined spaces, there's no need to train them on that topic. Before assigning training courses, make sure you have a good handle on the hazards present (even those created by others) on the job and assign training accordingly.
Retrain whenever necessary. If there's a change to a policy or procedure, or you catch an employee working in an unsafe manner, assign employees to retake training courses. There are also several topics where OSHA has mandatory retraining intervals (Bloodborne Pathogens, Forklift Operator, etc.), so make sure you keep your employees up to date with mandatory training intervals.
Supplement online training with other training formats. Safety meetings, also known as toolbox talks or tailgate meetings, can be 5-10 minute in-person discussions to highlight any hazards and discuss how employees can protect themselves. Safety meetings/Toolbox talks/Tailgate meetings can even be done virtually if you can't gather everyone in one place.
Document training! Make sure you maintain any training certificates, sign-in sheets, etc. for your records, either electronically or in hard copy. Many experts in the safety industry recommend keeping training records until the end of one's employment, although OSHA doesn't require that. The benefit to maintaining training records for a longer period of time is that it shows a history of commitment to training employees on workplace safety in the event that you are visited by OSHA.