Yes, you can do this—save time and increase the frequency of valuable safety experiences. It is a real thing. It is possible. In fact, this is true for most of the organizations we work with.

First, you have to make a small leap forward in your approach to workforce training: move more of your program online.

Why? For compliance topics that affect your entire operation, you can cut your training time in half, immediately, increasing the time available for live instructional experiences and safety engagement activities. In fact, one of the things that we hear from customers is that after moving compliance training online, they spend more time delivering critical live training. Also, you improve the training experience dramatically by diversifying your approach with a modern training medium.

So, it’s not a matter of replacing live training. Online training affords safety professionals more time in the day to work one-on-one with employees and in group settings, and to undertake important safety initiatives.

Online compliance training puts workers in control of the training experience and holds them accountable with testing. With HSI, workers get a more engaging experience and learn critical concepts in 20 minutes or less. HSI courses are interactive, use short films, animations, and real scenarios, to establish modern training modes that connect. This training experience is powerful because it promotes engagement, the key to knowledge retention—workers remember the training because they are active participants.

HSI creates content in cooperation with subject matter experts and each course involves relevant storytelling and creative knowledge-building exercises. We offer different types of training assets to help you tailor the delivery of information to your diverse workforce. These training options are designed to reinforce and extend training beyond the initial learning event, in bite-size pieces and deeper, more intensive experiences, to reach each the employee level of participation with an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy.

Here's how it all works together

HSI Offers 3 Types of Training Content

20-Minute Courses

Packed with interactivities and built by industry subject matter experts, these courses are the most efficient compliance training option. These highly engaging courses leverage the power of storytelling and creative media to deliver an effective, modern, memorable training experience. Courses include proficiency testing and knowledge checks.

5-Minute Courses

These short, interactive courses typically satisfy refresher training requirements. They are useful for addressing emerging training topics and best practices and transfer a lot of knowledge in a tight timeframe. Perfect for supplemental instruction after near-miss incidents, safety orientation, or whenever emphasis is needed on a particular safety topic. Each course contains a brief exam.

Supplemental Materials

Available for download and offline distribution, these assets are available in support of various training topics, and serve as useful guides for live instruction scenarios and popular "toolbox talks".

• Course Summaries include main points and instructive visuals
• Discussion Guides help you facilitate valuable dialogue about safety topics
• Checklists are appropriate for workers or supervisors tasked with hazard abatement and auditing

Things to Remember When Making Decisions About Training Content

• Where topics align, 5-Minute Courses are shorter versions of 20-minute, compliance-focused courses. If you assign the longer course, do not assign the 5-Minute course in the same training cycle. Typically, you would check the standard for training frequency and assign the 5-Minute course to meet applicable regulatory standards for refresher or retraining, likely in the next calendar year.
• If a safety topic requires training every other year, we recommend alternating the compliant, 20-minute course with the shorter, 5-Minute course.

How To Use Training Content Types

Annual Refresher Training

For workers previously trained on how to perform their job duties safely, and job-specific hazard exposure, who have moved into the knowledge retention stage for training topics.

Recommendation

Online courses combined with updated policies and procedures (available as Course Attachments) and Supplemental Materials, work well to support this training objective. Supplemental Materials are convenient for building knowledge retention and serve as field references after training online.

How It Works

Workers complete their online Emergency & Fire Preparedness training, along with reviewing your company’s Evacuation Route Map and Emergency Response Plan. Two weeks later, a supervisor or manager may use the Discussion Guide and Course Summary in a team meeting to support learning retention and answer in worksite-specific Emergency Response questions.

New Hire/New Training Assignments

For workers that are newly hired and workers recently assigned to new job responsibilities or with jobs involving the introduction of new hazards, in need of initial “how-to” and awareness-level training.

Recommendation

New Hire training is often provided by instructors/supervisors/managers on site. Live instruction events are trackable and reportable with the right software, greatly simplifying management.

How It Works

Deliver compliance related topics essential for all new employees by assigning 20-Minute courses for general topics like Sexual Harassment, and Emergency and Fire Safety Preparedness. Job-specific safety training for hazard recognition can then be assigned, as additive and supplemental for each employee, before works begins—OSHA’s Top 10 is a great place to start for most high-risk working environments.

Regular Safety Awareness & Engagement

For safety meeting hosts and attendees and other safety awareness initiatives that reinforce safe working behaviors.

Recommendation

Company safety initiatives may involve safety posters, email campaigns, safety content posted on the company intranet, and safety topics highlighted in company meetings. Any gathering of workers where you want to feature a safety topic are great times to leverage 5-Minute Courses and Supplemental Materials.

In addition, online courses may be displayed on a conference room monitor/projector and reviewed in a group setting. The discussion guide can then assist you in facilitating a valuable discussion.

After the meeting, you may grant completion credit to those in attendance, using the Offline Credit feature.

How It Works

Start your safety committee meeting by projecting/displaying a 5-Minute Course on Silica Hazards, working through the course together, including the brief exam. Follow that by deploying Supplemental Materials to each member, like the Discussion Guide, answering and asking questions relevant to the hazard across your operation.

Industry Certification Training

Some industries require workers to maintain certifications to be qualified to do certain jobs such as forklift operation, etc.

Recommendation

Employers need a convenient way to track those certifications and when they expire. Monitor certifications and expirations for your workforce with Live Event tracking.

How It Works

Establish a Live Event for each specific certification requirement, assigning members of your workforce, and managing dates of completion, expiration dates, and documentation.

Safety professionals and employers want to know that every legally required nuance is covered for each training topic. And as a best practice, there should be a document explaining how learning objectives connect with particular hazard exposures per training topic. Also, the training and the policy should live together and be easily accessible. That way, if inspected, the provision of training documentation is quickly facilitated.

Today, safety training online accomplishes this, tying it all together.

While developing your annual safety-training plan as discussed in 4 Pillars of Safety, know that OSHA also advises that safety training programs should be designed around a needs assessment. Take our 10-minute, no cost Training Needs Assessment to identify training topics for your workforce.