Common Mistakes in Health and Safety Training

No matter what industry or type of workplace you have, all of your employees will require some form of health and safety or workplace safety training.

Whether that's understanding the fire exit routes, to knowing the safety procedure for niche processes and equipment.

But did you know there are a few common mistakes that employers make when they are training their employees? If you need immediate support, get in touch with one of our health and safety experts on 0800 141 3930.

Why should you ensure your employees are trained properly?

Ensuring your staff are properly trained is a crucial part of the safety measures process. Conducting regular training will allow your workplace to witness fewer workplace incidents and accidents.

You also have a legal obligation to provide your employees with suitable training.

Our experts have collated some of the common mistakes made in health and safety training, and ways you can avoid making the mistakes yourself.

Not understanding your training needs

A majority of the time, employees will undertake training that isn't relevant to them or their role. This can also cause employees to not complete the training they need, as they won't be aware of the training they need to complete.

Which in turn will put your employees at risk of making errors and increase the chances of accidents.

To ensure that you are carrying out the right training with the right employees, you can implement a Training Needs Analysis (TNA). This will help you to introduce the right training, assess what the knowledge gaps and skill gaps are. The TNA will include the following:

• An Organisational level. These are the areas that require training to help reach the organisation's long-term and short-term goals.
• The Individual level. This looks at the individual people within your organisation and what training they will need. This could range from general knowledge, or if they need in-depth or specialist training.
• The Job level. This looks at what skills and knowledge are required for a particular job to be carried out safely.

A training needs analysis will allow you to assess who within your business needs to be trained and offers the opportunity to cut the costs of unnecessary training.

Not recording the training

Business owners and employers need to keep track of what training has been carried out and by who. Keeping a written record will allow employers to identify when training needs to be refreshed or when a certificate has expired.

This will help the business decrease the cost of the training as they won't be putting the same employees through the same training again, especially when it's not required. Keeping track will also allow you to monitor the value of the training.

For example, after a round of health and safety training you should start to see a decrease in incidents and accidents within your workplace.

Outdated training

No one really wants to spend time undertaking training if it doesn't keep them engaged, or if the training is outdated.

Employers can combat this by changing the standard format of the training. For example, instead of using a presentation they could make a mock situation where the employees can get involved and hands on.

Alternatively you could bring in external speakers who will be able to go into more detail in a particular subject.

Although employers must keep in mind what your employees' learning styles are. Where some may thrive in the hands on experience, it might not be beneficial for everyone.

Before you start any training, you could ask your employees what methods they would prefer and try to cater to them.

This should include any reasonable adjustments that need to be made, for example, if your employees first language isn't English or if they have a disability.

Training not being updated regularly

As with most things, training isn't a one time occurrence with additional refreshers needing to be made regularly or when certifications expire.

As the workplace is ever evolving you should take this into consideration when you are putting together training plans for your employees.

As a rule of thumb you should assess the training yearly, this will ensure that everything is kept up to date. It's also worth noting that they may not require the full training and instead benefit from a smaller refresher course.

Where it's a rule to check on training annually, if you feel like your employees would benefit from a refresher course sooner, you should bring the training forward or add in another training session.

Training refreshers should also be considered as part of accident and incident investigation.

Get in contact

Getting health and safety training wrong could have disastrous consequences for workplaces and business owners. Croner is hand to help you put together an effective training plan, write risk assessments and ensure that you are following health and safety best practice.

Croner has over 80 years experience helping employers with their health and safety, HR and employment law obligations, get in touch with one of our experts today to see how we can help you on 0800 141 3930