What is safety training? Topics, benefits, and more

Secure your workplace by giving your team the right knowledge, practices, and attitude. Through safety training programs, you establish that completion works with protection. 

Putting safety training courses together is a lot of work. Let this article guide you through the best steps, topics, and tools to deliver the training your crew needs. Equip them against hazards and risks and send them home from work healthily.  

What is safety training?  

Safety training educates your team on the best practices, protocols, and procedures to perform their roles safely. This helps your crew minimize and eliminate the risk of accidents, injuries, and damage in their jobs.  

Safety programs develop members’ understanding of a safe workplace, making them contribute to it. The training stands as their guide in identifying and managing hazards. In return, they become confident in preventing or handling emergencies. 

Why do employees need safety training?  

Giving safety training is more than just an obligation. It’s an initiative worth investing your time and resources in that improves your whole organization. Let’s explore the perks of facilitating safety programs.  

• Employee protection 

Safety training drives your crew to be protective of themselves and others. They’ll be conscious of practices and procedures that keep them from danger. Their improved awareness reduces their chances of falling to injuries, accidents, or fatalities.  

• Compliance with regulations  

Safety training makes sure your team stays in line with standard protocols, analyses, and rights set by regulatory boards. Employee compliance with regulations puts them out of harm's way, while you avoid legal and financial troubles.  

• Hazard awareness  

A well-trained team is mindful of the different hazards they could face with their work. They’re alert to physical, biological, chemical, and ergonomic risks and prepared to eliminate or at least minimize them.  

• Improved productivity  

Members who are knowledgeable of the safest practices perform their jobs better. When there’s nothing to worry about for their protection, they put their full focus on finishing tasks. Safe procedures are the most efficient ones that boost your productivity.  

• Better workplace morale  

Good safety training tells your team they are valued and a part of a caring community. They grow to trust each other in the organization, creating a positive environment. Your people will work better and stay longer thanks to good morale.  

• Reduced costs  

For every $1 you invest in safety training, your organization saves up to $6 in costs according to OSHA. Investing in your team’s protection prevents injury compensation, damage repairs, and high insurance premiums.  

How to develop an effective safety training program?  

Gaining the most benefits from safety training takes deliberate effort in research and planning. While it may sound overwhelming, the work will surely be worthwhile. The following steps will help you maximize your labor and put your energy in the right place. 

1. Assess your organization  

Take a good look at your organization’s recent incident and hazard reports. What are the most pressing? What are the most common? In asking these questions, you find the topics your training should cover and the issues it should address.  

Performing a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) is also great, especially if you have specific team roles with unique risks. This helps in identifying training objectives.  

2. Know what your team needs  

Your team themselves have the best understanding of the work they do and the hazards they encounter. Ask them what they want to learn, fix, and resolve. In this way, your safety training can be as relevant as possible to your members.  

Surveying the needs of your crew pinpoints what’s missing in their knowledge and skillsets. Training that’s connected to them is more effective and more engaging.  

3. Create and execute an engaging safety training  

The best safety training is the one where your members are active. Having them just sit and listen to lectures leaves them bored and uninterested. Engaging programs get your team to act and participate, increasing the information they could keep for application.  

There are several ways to get your crew engaged with training. Here are a few strategies you should consider  

• Offer hands-on experience  

Learn safety by practicing safety. Adding simulations and demos takes your team straight to application, rather than relying on imagination and mental notes. Additionally, this could help you explain procedures easily and clearly.  

• Combine different forms of materials  

Adding different formats to your training tools keeps the program exciting. You can achieve this by including images, videos, and audio that pull your members’ senses.  

• Turn your training into a game  

Testing your crew’s understanding of safe working practices through games makes training fun and increases key takeaways. This method could be applied through image association, connecting the dots, filling in the blanks, and many more.  

4. Assess your team’s understanding and compliance  

Safety training is all for nothing if your team doesn’t understand their lessons and can’t apply them. Be sure to test how much members have learned from the program, for you to track their progress and the success of the courses.  

5. Collect your team’s feedback  

Collecting feedback helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your program. You get to see whether the training you gave was helpful for the safety of your team’s jobs. Use these comments and ratings as your basis to improve the next training.  

6. Make training continuous  

While follow-up sessions don’t have to be as exhaustive as the initial program for a topic, regular refreshers and updates make sure your team’s safety consciousness is sharp. Don’t see this as added work, but a continuation of your valuable effort.  

Safety training topics you need to cover  

The following topics are the essentials for your safety program, regardless of area or industry. These subjects lay a solid foundation to build a safe working environment for your team.  

1. Hazard communication  

Hazard communication identifies and relays chemical risks through labels, documents, and safety data sheets (SDS). These provide comprehensive information on the substance’s ingredients, exposure controls, and personal protection to secure workers.  

HAZCOM training will help your team understand labels, interpret SDSs, and recognize pictograms that safeguard them from chemical exposure. They’ll learn to take the best action based on the information provided and comply with OSHA standards.  

2. Proper use of tools and personal protective equipment  

The misuse of tools and protective equipment can lead to harm. Train your team to properly operate apparatus, and upskill them to identify limitations, damages, and wear. Teaching them the hierarchy of controls and safeguarding methods is also relevant.  

Your crew must know the different Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and the correct ways to wear, remove, and dispose of them. Training on the proper usage and application of PPEs secures them from contact, burns, and cuts.  

3. Risk assessment  

Safety training on risk assessment sharpens your members’ decision-making when handling hazards. Proper evaluation helps the crew decide on effective controls and additional measures based on possible consequences.  

This training helps them be attentive to materials, situations, and processes for everyone’s security. While this is usually reserved for managers, instructing members on this subject gives you peace of mind knowing they mindfully choose safety.  

4. Slip and fall protection  

84% of nonfatal injuries in the workplace were a result of slips, trips, and falls. Establishing proper maintenance and safeguarding of surfaces for your team is clearly needed. Promote to members proper housekeeping to keep floors dry and free of risks. 

Train them to address spills, slippery surfaces, and poor lighting. Emphasize proper footwear to avoid sprains, fractures, and lacerations. Even more, slip and fall protection is especially crucial when working near hazardous pieces of equipment.  

5. Fire safety  

Fire hazards can be found in any workplace and setting. From simple circuit overloads to high-risk combustible items, the fire causes are broad. So, it’s necessary to hold training that corrects bad fire practices and prevents outbreaks.  

This safety program should teach fire risk assessment, extinguisher usage, and related injury treatment. Your team must be familiar with the exit points of the workplace in case of a fire. 

6. Emergency response and aid  

Prevention is better than cure, but sometimes accidents occur. Prepare your team for these scenarios before they even happen. Quick administration of first aid increases the chances of survival and diminishes recovery time in case of an emergency.  

Train your team in basic first-aid techniques like wound bandaging, fracture splinting, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Familiarizing them with how to identify signs of a stroke and a heart attack can also go a long way toward saving lives at work.  

5 Recommended safety training courses  

Creating training materials can take so much time that you might not have. But that doesn’t mean the quality of your program should be compromised. SC Training offers excellent and engaging OSHA safety training courses ready to be used including -  

• OSHA First Aid Training and Standards  

This course is a great overview training for basic first aid. It prepares your team to handle different emergencies, so they’ll be ready to act. The material covers situations that need immediate first aid like wounds, dislocations, and allergic reactions.  

• General Safety and Health Provisions (US) 

In line with employee regulation compliance, this course discusses the legal safety protocols of OSHA Standards 1926.20. It lays out safe workplace maintenance and practices. This also discusses worker rights, duties, and responsibilities for safety.  

• OSHA Focus Four Hazards | Caught in or Between Hazards  

Caught in or between hazards is one of the leading causes of construction fatalities. The OSHA safety training program corrects common negligence, improper procedures, and compliance failures that lead to accidents from equipment with moving parts.  

• Control of Hazardous Energy – Lockout/Tagout (US)  

The dangers of unexpected startups or the release of hazardous energy bring a need for constant retraining and reassessment. This course is a perfect refresher on the best procedures for lockout tagout and the recognition of energy hazards.  

• Hazard Communication in General Industry (US)  

Another excellent refresher course, the material retrains your team on the different HAZCOM classifications. It offers practice in reading chemical labels and safety data sheets. This works best in keeping your team informed and vigilant about substances.  

Create the best safety training your team needs with SC Training 

Facilitating safety training can’t get any easier with SC Training, one of the best safety learning management systems. 

SC Training offers everything you need to deliver courses and assessments for a safer workplace.  

Build your training material in no time with the platform’s creator tool. Just drag and drop all the content you need from images, files, and video to produce an engaging program. With the help of 80+ templates available, your best safety training is ready to go.  

Save yourself the effort by using create with AI. Generate your whole training with a simple prompt, so you can establish safer practices, procedures, and processes faster. Promote a better workplace right away.  

You won’t have to worry about keeping your team active and engaged throughout training with SC Training’s gamification. Get your crew to enjoy safety training using bite-sized courses turned into fun games. Safe doesn’t have to mean boring.  

Jumpstart the best safety training with SC Training. Sign up today!