The future of EHS and HR safety training is all about increasing access by eliminating friction between the training programs and those who need it. We can use the data gathered in our recent training survey to help establish best practices for the future of workforce and safety training programs. Examining the current and future trends illuminated in our research, we can see which barriers to training need to be broken.
Your Ultimate Goal: Eliminate Friction Between Training Material and Those Who Need It
Training programs are only as effective as their implementation. With fewer barriers to access, the training courses you provide your employees are more likely to impact your worksite’s safety and profitability positively. Improving the ease of access, retention, and application of your training program will help eliminate friction between the courses you offer and those who need them.
Make Your Training Easier to Access
The easier it is to access training courses, the more likely they’ll be completed. Mobile capability and notifications go a long way towards increasing ease of access. With mobile capability, you can access training courses directly from a cell phone – it’s like having a library of courses in your pocket! Alerts and notifications will help your employees on track to complete training courses.
KPA offers both mobile capability and alerts to make accessing and staying on top of training programs as easy as possible.
Make the Concepts Easier to Retain
Shorter training courses tend to be easier to retain because the amount of information is more digestible and it keeps viewers engaged throughout the program. Moreover, they take less time to complete. Brief training lengths put your employees back on the factory floor or job site sooner, which eases the strain on both your employees and bottom line.
KPA provides a wide range of training course lengths, from short and sweet to deeper dives.
Make Your Training Easier to Apply
More relevant and engaging training programs lead to higher levels of information retention for your employees. When training content is relevant to specific industries and locations and is assigned strategically to only those who need it, it is easier for employees to apply the training lessons to their roles.
Engagement and retention also tends to increase when employees have training courses that embody the voice and values of their company.
KPA offers state- and industry-specific training and training courses that zero in on the responsibilities of specific roles. Customizable training content options help tailor courses to the needs of your industry and the personality of your company.
KPA’s Director of Training Offers Some Best Practices:
In a recent interview, Shawn Smith, KPA’s Director of Training had some recommendations for training leaders looking to prepare for the future of their EHS and HR training programs.
“I would say keep it simple, short, and relevant.
So you want it to be easy for users to access, training, and necessary supplemental information like procedures. You want them to be able to get to it when they need to get to it. And if that’s from a mobile device or a kiosk, or a company portal. Whatever that is, you just want to make it as simple as possible and, clear for employees to be able to get to that information when they need it.
And then secondly consider a microlearning approach using shorter courses over time to reinforce the information. Timed repetition is really popular. It’s a very simple way you cover a topic of importance over a few minutes. But, you do it over three or six months. You know, studies have shown that it greatly improves retention and it really keeps those important things top of mind. It just never hurts for them to think about it more than once, and really try to ingrain it into their day-to-day work activities. And then third, using industry-specific or relevant training, wherever you can.
There are a lot of different ways to do that. Even from creating your own presentations to supplement existing or customizing training that you have so that you can add in some site-specific or state-specific, or industry-specific where maybe some of the training that you have doesn’t have that right now.”
How KPA Can Help Future-Proof Your Training Program
Future-minded workforce and safety training best practices revolve around increasing training effectiveness by improving your programs’ ease of access, retention, and application. KPA offers hundreds of training courses with a wide variety of topics, lengths, and customization options to provide high-quality, easy-access training to your workforce.
KPA’s experts can help you develop a program that fits your business. Contact us to learn more.
