8,490 injuries have been reported involving hand and power tools that resulted in days away from work in a single year alone (source) — and that’s not including the injuries not resulting in time off or unreported injuries!
Let’s be honest: It can often be a chore to get all of your employees through safety training. It can be even more difficult to make the training sink in so that your employees actually put the knowledge into practice, right?
So how do you help to make the training more comprehensible, more digestible, and more applicable for your employees? Take a look at these 3 strategies that will get your employees to practice hand and power tool safety right away!
Use Multimedia Content
One problem can be the training format. By using multimedia content to teach, you’re going to get through to a lot more learners than with traditional teaching methods. Videos can be a valuable training tool because, in this medium, there are capabilities of slowing things down and demonstrating scenarios that you might not be able to do in person.
It’s not a miracle fix-all solution, but the training will be easier to comprehend and more engaging to work with.
Create Reminders
Workplace reminders like posters and signs can help a concept sink in surprisingly well. An employee who walks in to work each day seeing a simple safety reminder hanging above his work station is much more likely to keep that message on his mind throughout the workday than an employee who hasn’t seen it.
Just make sure the posters don’t get stale. Change them out every so often so they don’t become invisible background clutter.
Present Real-Time, Hands-On Training
Arguably the most effective training method is to correct and reinforce behavior on the job. Employees who are given the information and training at the relevant time are more likely to understand and remember. Not only should unsafe behavior be corrected, but demonstrations of good safety should be acknowledged.
As strange as it may feel to stop an employee in the middle of a task, it’s important to say something about any unsafe behavior as soon as it’s noticed—just make sure you’re not creating additional safety hazards when you interrupt.
Consider using a tool like Ving to help you with these strategies. Taking these small steps in the right direction will help pave the way to better hand and power tool safety in your workplace, drastically reducing the number of injuries occurring.
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