Building Safety Culture: 3 Key Benefits of Online Safety Training

Our last blog discussed the importance and benefits of a strong safety culture. To create and maintain one, companies must adopt an effective safety training program. While both live and online safety training are effective training mediums that compliment and supplement each other, this blog will shine the spotlight on the rising popularity and benefits of online safety training.

According to the 2015 Training Industry Report, the most frequently anticipated purchases among all training expenditures were online learning tools and systems, indicated by 37 percent of respondents who were managers, instructional designers, and responsible employees of U.S.-based corporations and educational institutions, with 100 or more employees across various industries. Respondents also expressed their highest priorities for training in terms of allocating resources, including: increasing training programs’ effectiveness (29 percent), reducing costs (19 percent), and measuring the impact of training programs (16 percent) - each of which online training technology would be able to address.

Here are three ways online safety training can benefit the company’s bottom line:

1. Increase effectiveness

Employees can attend their training wherever they are and in an environment that best fits their learning style: at work, a quiet library, a coffee shop with ambient noise, or at the comfort of their home. Online training is self-paced, which means that workers can break it into smaller sections, take a walk or stretch to relive ergonomic stress if and when they need to, and start fresh when they can best focus and absorb new information. Working at their own pace also allows workers to minimize the impact on their daily routine, thus maintain their work productivity.

Besides, online safety training’s personalization capability ensures that students receive the most relevant information. They won’t have to listen to questions or discussions that have nothing to do with their specific training, yet still have the ability to quickly interact with trainers, support, and access all necessary resources at a touch of a button. This reduces fear of asking “silly” questions some may have. Lastly, online safety training provides a standardized process, thus guarantees consistency in delivering content.

2. Reduce costs

With online training, companies no longer have to reserve a site to conduct live sessions, pay for trainers’ and students’ transportation fees, and other costs associated with hosting a live event. Beyond scheduling issues, when the weather does not cooperate, or an event happened that caused last-minute cancellation, unexpected additional costs could accrue.

3. Measure impact

To many businesses, a critical benefit of online training that makes the most difference is the ability to measure its impact. Online training platform allows quick yet comprehensive reporting of who completed which training, average time employees took to finish a module of a course, how often workers log in to the system to access their online training, their interaction with available learning resources, as well as their performance on quizzes and tests. Analysis of such data helps suggest practical strategies to improve the course quality, for example, by extending training time on topics that most workers seem to take longer to complete or score lower on. By integrating questions and feedback collection to the platform, employers can collect instant, valuable data to constantly increase the effectiveness of their training programs and tailor them to fit workers’ needs and learning styles. Online training technology also allows visuals of real-life situations, via photos, videos, or online simulation, as a demonstration that students can apply what they’ve learned in real work situations.

All in all, audience assessment is key to an effective safety training program. Keep your workers’ needs and learning styles in mind to provide them the most suitable training medium.