What do YOU do to make your safety training at work fun and engaging for employees?
Recently, we posted that simple question into a number of LinkedIn groups that deal with safety and/or EHS: “What do you do to make your safety training more fun and engaging for your employees?”
A large number of safety professionals chimed in to share their safety training tips, and we’ve collected their replies in this article. It’s interesting to read the replies and to see how many of them work along similar themes. If you’re looking for ways to create fun, enjoyable, memorable, and impactful safety training at your work, we think you’ll find some good ideas below.
Below are some tips for making safety training more fun, engaging, and effective.
Games, Competition, and Rewards
A number of safety professionals said they tried to include some form of game, competition, and/or reward in their safety training. We’ve included some of those replies below. Also, click the following link to play some free online safety training games we’ve created for you.
One safety trainer used Jeopardy-style games, competition, and candy bars.
“Training or reviewing OSHA standards can be dry and hard to swallow. We used the Jeopardy format and divided the sessions in half to do a review after the training. The different standards could have questions from easy to hard, with corresponding values. The teams alternate choosing Standard topic and question value. If an individual answers it correctly he/she gets a candy bar, when a team wins, everyone on the team gets a candy bar. Competition is always there, and points and candy bars mark the win. When the first session goes through it, the word is out and people show up with thinking caps on.”
Frank Fox, Retired EH&S, The Dow Chemical Company
Another also used a TV game show as a model (this time The Weakest Link):
“I teach Site Manager Safety training and I find quizzes work really well we have a show in England called the weakest Link and I base the quiz on that. It’s a process of elimination everyone in the group gets 3 lives and you keep going around the table if someone gets their question wrong the person next to them gets the chance to answer it. . I do quizzes on my SMSTS courses and it really gets them going we have a lot of fun, and information tends to stick, very similar to the way they do it on the weakest link.”
David Shanahan, Director of Collective Safety Solutions
Here’s another for games, competition, and rewards awarded during safety training:
“When I do my trainings I try to make them more interactive rather than just listening to me go on and on and on. I like to play games with the quizzes at the end of the sessions. I also find giving out little.webpts or incentives to the top 3 participants also helps to keep everyone awake.”
Kelly Myers-Mitchell, Regulatory and Compliance Coordinator at Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency
This suggestion makes a few points but stresses the use of puzzles and problem-solving:
“Examples and hands-on during live-training makes them more vivid.
In my lectures of system / software safety, I also present the involvement of certification authorities (FAA, EASA & others). At the end of this session, and in order to assimilate this activity, I present the “think like the object” tactics, as part of the Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) approach.
After providing the strategy and examples in other areas (also from my hobby of free diving and hooks examples), I give them to build and solve a puzzle.
IMHO, you can solve this puzzle ONLY if you think like this specific object. I know – from feedback of the participants – that they remember the idea behind only because of the puzzle solving.”
Kuper Haim, Software Safety Specialist at Elbit Systems Ltd
Here’s another safety professional for games and rewards (and giving employees some public credit!):
“Provision of assessment & reward after safety training. Winners names shall be published on notice board.”
Humor in Safety Training
Quite a few people brought up the importance of humor. We like safety training humor ourselves–check some of our humorous safety training blog posts.
Here’s a safety professional who uses humor, including photos of safety mistakes, to get employees to explain the RIGHT way to do things.
“I like to use funny photos and/or videos that show mistakes. Not gross ones mind you but funny ones. Then get the class to elaborate on how serious the incident is or could have been. It gets their attention with a little humor and results in more active participation in the topic.”
Timothy Johnson, Director of Safety and Quality Control, Murphy Industrial Coatings
I could have put the comment below from another safety professional with “active participation” but I’ll put it here with humor:
“I do agree. Funny videos. There are ton on the Internet. Also trying to get them involved in the training get them to have a discussion instead of a lecture. Taught a class once and didn’t talk except for the first five minutes. Awesome.”
Quentin Snook, Fire Chaplain
I’ll place this one under good-natured humor:
“I like to make posters with spelling mistakes and the operatives on development could not wait to tell me I had a grammar error in the poster, and then on a Friday buy the operative who told me about the grammar error received a kids happy meal it went down a treat with other operatives who then went about actually reading the H&S posters to spot deliberate mistake after awhile and a great sense of amusement certain operatives started to bring in the Scotsman and such likes for me to read to help me with my grammar it brought about such amusement to the boys on site, thinking I had a problem with my spelling but it brought about a great safety culture on site for the 4 years I was on it’s a tradition I hope to continue.”
Michael Loughran, Site Manager at MacTaggart & Mickel Timber Systems LTD
Another for humor and engagement in safety training–but mostly humor:
“It has been my experience that training should not be conducted in a somber atmosphere. If you can get people to laugh you will be able to get them to learn. Often times those that we are required to train are there against their will or may perceive the training as inconsequential to their job requirements, or for that matter, it is training that to them has become repetitious. If we cannot get them to engage in what it is that we are trying to deliver to them, I then liken it to trying to ram a stick up a dead dog’s a**. We are doomed to failure from the outset. I myself have been involved in courses that after the first ten minutes I am beginning to fall asleep. The facilitator is delivering everything by rote and drones on endlessly. If we take it upon ourselves to add a little levity to the course material, no matter how dry it may seem, people will perk up and pay attention and if they are paying attention chances are they will retain some of what it is you are trying to deliver to them.”
Active Participation in Safety Training
Many of the replies involved different forms of having the trainees be active participants in the training. That’s smart, because active learning is a key adult learning principle.
Here’s one person who replied with a neat example about having workers film things with video cameras.
“Years ago I worked at a DIY retailer who had a chalk-and-talk health and safety session. I got agreement to change it for my stores, so I used a camera and asked them to film around each store. Some groups filmed real health and safety situations, whilst others set up situations, like putting a pallet in front of a fire door. We then debriefed what their findings were back in the training room (or canteen!) and the buzz was fantastic. I just filled in any gaps with questions. Head Office then used the film clips and made a video. It was used on Tuesday training sessions, made by our own people. I think learning by inquiry is the best way. The approach works well for refresher style training too. I did a room ‘set up’ once to see how many hazards people spotted when they came in (well, it was refresher training!).”
Kay Bucky, Management and Leadership Trainer, The Development Company Limited
Yet another EHS manager used video (he shot it), active participation by the employees, and some humor to create fun safety training:
“With all the technology available today, I found creating a training video worked really well to stimulate training interest. The video covered a meeting followed by a site visit using department employees. It was purposely created with flaws built into the script to emphasize key points in the training. Attendees were then asked to see what errors they could point out later in a discussion of what went wrong, what went right, etc. Interest was high since they knew they would be challenged to find the mistakes (Where’s Waldo?), they knew the employees in the video and some well placed humor. The downside: it required a lot of development work on my part, willing volunteers and some practice runs. However the upside was a very effective training tool that could be tailored to specific training needs AND keep interest levels high. Oh, did I mention I did it all with in house resources and ZERO budget? They still talk about the video today.”
Gary Moulder, EHS Manager, Haas Group International, West Point, Pennsylvania
Here’s another advocate of getting the employees involved, this time with inquiry-based training (which has come up before–don’t forget to see our articles on Scenario-Based Training as well as Storytelling, Scenarios & Training):
“If you truly want employee to be engaged then you need to actually get them involved. Scenario training is a great way to do this.
For example, in an area where iron workers are involved, these guys live at height and are often looked up to by the other workers. Safety harnesses are mandatory PPE and yet many of them like to wear them loose. Put on your harness during your briefing and then start walking down the aisle as you explain why a loose harness is guaranteed death. As you do this, allow the harness to slip off your shoulder and then physically demonstrate how they would spin out of it and hit the ground. You do not need to explain step by step, instead, simply carry on with your presentation as you spin out of your harness. As soon as it hits the ground stop talking and ask, “So, how well does that comfortable harness style get me home tonight?”
Another way is to get them involved by knowing your staff. If you know that Billy has a little girl at home find a way to tie that in. After all, what is more important to Billy than going home to his beautiful little daughter every night? That’s a powerful way to get buy-in. If John fails to use a tool lanyard up on a scaffold and his hammer falls and strikes Billy in the head his daughter will be attending his funeral instead of him attending her graduation.”
Collin McKnight, OSHA Construction Site Safety Professional
This person offered lots of great ideas for safety training. We’ll put these under “active participation” but they span the gamut:
“You probably already have these on your list, but here a few of my suggestions anyway:
Have trainees demonstrate or use the tools during the training. Examples include actually filling out a permit form or working in groups to work through the job safety analysis process for two steps of a common, easy task most people can relate to relate to – like gassing up a car or mowing a lawn.
Have trainees play a game, do a crossword puzzle or otherwise compete to show that they know/have learned information being provided.
Giving trainees rewards (even cheap toys) for reading some of the slides aloud or leading a quick stretch to break up lecture-only portions of the training when they can’t be avoided.
Asking trainees to provide examples from their own work area, especially solutions, suggestions or learnings that they can share.
Having a decorative theme. Years ago I did a bank compliance training on regulation B – the room was decorated with lots of bees-themed items. Participants that answered questions correctly were given bee-themed prizes. And, the group that was the first to successfully and correctly completed a relevant application form on their easel chart was awarded bee-themed prizes. Per an agreement with my supervisor to do something in training way beyond my comfort level, I actually wore a bee costume. These things may sound silly but they increased class participation, engagement and interest. And, the trainees walked away with a much greater understanding of the relevant forms and how they should be used than they would have if I had just showed slides on how to fill out the forms.”
Erin Perlow, Occupational Safety and Health Specialist
Here’s another for active participation in safety training. This safety professional makes the good point that it’s worthwhile making sure everyone knows one another (solid!):
“Getting everyone to take turns introducing themselves and a little on what they know about the topic is quite useful as an ice breaker, before the start of the session. Making room for class activities e.g. discussion sessions, group work, practice sessions, etc. also make the class interactive. A little veering off with conversation cards enables some introverts to express themselves on issues raised on any card they pick.”
Bassey Akan, Training Manager at SMTS (NIG.) LIMITED
Here’s another fan of creating an active, scenario-based, problem-solving situation for the workers during safety training. Again, this person suggests the use of self-shot video, which comes up a lot too.
A video-based scenario elearning courseware that provides exaggerating/dramatic negative and positive feedbacks upon learners choice of decision.
The story scenario can go inline with what the learner goes through in his/her daily life at work. This video-based scenario will captivate the learners’ attention and engage them throughout with various safety scenarios.
This elearning material can either be
● utilise at the learners’ own time
● use during a face to face training session to get the whole class participate
● use as a challenge among groups during the class