Workplace Safety Training: How It Matters for Employees?

[This article was written by Marilou Alcaide.]

The workplace is where people spend more time than they spend at their homes, when we consider the hour’s people are awake. Indeed, the workplace is like a second home to employees. Just as a home offers comfort and security, similarly the workplace should not only allow employees to be comfortable but must offer safety.

Workplaces like factories deal with elements like heat, chemicals, electricity, and other such aspects that can potentially cause a risk. There are chances that an employee may face an accident or a health hazard at work. This can affect their health seriously. Workplace safety is thus very important to ensure the workplace is secure. Training is an important aspect of ensuring safety in the workplace.

What is Workplace Safety Training?

Workplace safety training courses involves training every single employee on all aspects related to safety at the workplace. Whether the organization is a company where employees work in an office or is a factory where there are more risks; workplace safety training is essential everywhere. Accidents and hazardous situations can occur anywhere, even in an office where employees work on their desk all day.

This is why safety training is important. Every employee needs to understand the different kinds of risks and hazards in their workplace. They should understand how they could be personally affected by these risks and hazards. The impact of such accidents should be clearly understood. This would help employees understand the need for maintaining safety in the workplace.

During workplace safety training, employees understand what they should do to maintain safety. They would be provided guidance on how to protect themselves to prevent any accident. They would also be trained on what to do in case of facing a hazardous situation. Employees who undergo workplace training will be less likely to be involved in accidents and such situations.

Importance of Workplace Safety Training for Employees

Employees work at an organization to help it achieve its objectives. At the same time, they need to achieve their personal goals. Working in an environment where there are hazards and risks will not help in achieving such goals. It is the duty of the employer to provide a safe and hazard-free workplace for employees. If there is an accident or an employee faces any hazard, then the employer is liable for the same. They can face lawsuits and their reputation can be affected.

Organizations thus make it mandatory for employees to attend workplace safety training. This is beneficial for employees for their own health and safety. The importance of workplace safety training is highlighted by the following benefits an employee gets by attending such training:

• It ensures employees are safe at work and are able to achieve their full potential.
• An employee who is not worried about hazards while dealing with heavy objects, chemicals, or heat will be able to do his/her work more effectively.
• Workplace safety training ensures employees know how to keep themselves safe. They can also help their colleagues in being safe.
• This training ensures employees are healthy and productive. Loss of work hours due to injury and illness can be reduced through workplace safety measures.
• An employee who is trainedabout workplace safety is comfortable and more satisfied at work.
• Employees are more focused on their task and goals and this helps to make them more efficient.
• It allows employees to be motivated and prevents turnover.

Delivering workplace safety training

In many places, workplace safety training is mandated by law. Even if not mandated, it is important that an organization trains an employee on workplace safety right from day one. Most organizations include workplace safety training during the onboarding program. When an employee reports for work, he/she would receive various types of training, one of which would be workplace safety training.

This ensures the employee is aware about workplace safety protocols and procedures. They can then follow this right from the first day they start work. This makes them feel comfortable and helps in preventing accidents and hazardous situations. Apart from initial training, employees may need to be trained periodically for two reasons. One is as a refresher to ensure employees constantly follow workplace safety procedures. The second reason is to update employees about new protocols and procedures.

Some of the areas to be covered during workplace safety training include:

• Importance of safety at the workplace.
• Why employees should follow safety measures?
• Measures to be taken by employees to ensure safety at every stage in the work process.
• Introduction to safety dress or equipment to be used while working.
• Explanation of safety rules and procedures to be followed. A detailed description of safety protocols and procedures is very important in workplace safety training.
• All hazardous issues at the work place need to be explained during the training with details of the safety measures.
• What an employee should do in case of an accident or a hazardous situation should be clearly explained. Mock drills can be conducted as a practical session to ensure preparedness.
• Charts are displayed in organizations to highlight safety aspects. These charts can be explained in detail during workplace safety training.
• Workplace training must highlight the importance of employees being able to make suggestions to the management to improve safety measures.

Traditionally, workplace safety training is conducted in classroom sessions. Thanks to the growth of online learning, employees can now be trained online. This ensures employees are trained when they are free and it doesn’t disturb regular work. It also allows employees to learn at their own pace. Online training courses for workplace safety are very helpful when it comes to refresher training.

Conducting training online is beneficial as the organization can create the training module once. The same can be used to train every employee. This leads to cost savings. Employees also prefer online training as they find it more interesting than classroom training. Delivering workplace safety training through online websites on computers and mobile phones is the best way to ensure effective workplace training for employees.

Author Bio:

The article has been written by Marilou Alcaide, marketing writer at Coggno Inc. that is Learning Management System for employees & students. Creating appealing contents to engage the readers all around the world is the author’s keen desire.

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