Health and safety training content varies widely across industries. Moreover, even within a single facility, training differs for individual roles depending on the processes they follow. Therefore, consider the following examples of topics you might cover with your team.
Site or facility health and safety training
To start, teach workers about the site’s health and safety program. Specifically, explain the key elements they must understand to work safely. Finally, use the following ideas as a guide for what you might discuss:
- Reporting injuries, incidents, and near misses
- Emergency evacuation procedures
- Notifying management of unsafe work conditions
- Location of emergency equipment
- Location of emergency access points
- Introduction to the EHS team
- Accessing first aid treatment
The training idea is to ensure that workers know who to go to for help with health and safety problems. Doing so will help strengthen your site’s safety culture and get employees more involved in the EHS program.
Process equipment
To begin with, equipment safety plays a vital role in any training program. Moreover, the specific requirements vary widely from business to business. Finally, this part of health and safety can include many topics, such as:
- Handling and storing equipment
- Inspecting and testing equipment before use
- Selecting the right equipment for each task
- Red tagging defective equipment
- Equipment shutdown procedures
When creating process equipment training materials, make sure you use images, videos, and diagrams of the actual equipment your team uses. It’s too confusing for employees when the actual equipment doesn’t match what they see in training.
Hazard identification and control
Workers must develop the skill to identify and control the hazards they encounter. Indeed, this applies to all work settings, where one employee’s observation can protect everyone in the same area. Therefore, review the following examples of hazard-related health and safety training topics:
- Identifying safety hazards
- Reading NFPA labels and safety data sheets
- Handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials
- Different types of hazards (fall, trip, chemical, noise, etc.)
- Lockout tagout safety procedures
- Controlling and removing hazards
- Creating a hazard-free work area
It is important for workers to understand that they can directly influence site health and safety. In addition, training them to take a proactive approach turns workers into your eyes and ears, which reduces near-miss events and incident rates.
Personal safety in health and safety training
Personal safety is another key component of health and safety training. Moreover, it can include a wide range of topics, from ergonomics to situational awareness:
- Signs and symptoms of illness or injury
- Proper lifting techniques
- Posture and stance
- Ergonomic workstation setup and use
- Repetitive injury prevention
- Strategies for preventing illness
- Grooming and hygiene for personal safety
- Situational awareness at work
Discussing these topics equips your workers to protect themselves against safety risks. Furthermore, it ensures they take an active role in hazard identification and control.
Interpersonal relationships
From verbal altercations to physical fights, interpersonal relationships can strongly influence workplace safety conditions. Therefore, consider adding the following topics to your site’s health and safety training:
- Examples of workplace violence
- Types of harassment
- Workplace conflict resolution techniques
- Reporting instances of harassment or violence
- Diversity and inclusion
It’s all about creating a work environment where employees express their issues in a healthy way. And through health and safety training, you can set a standard of conduct so employees know what you will and won’t tolerate.
Emergency response
Employees play a critical role in emergency response. Indeed, frontline workers are often the first people on an incident scene. Moreover, their ability to react quickly and appropriately in different scenarios can strongly influence the outcome of the situation.
Training workers on these health and safety topics will empower them to act when emergencies happen:
- CPR and AED use
- Inspection and use of fire extinguishers
- Medical emergency response
- Emergency evacuation procedures
- Fire incident response
- Basic first aid
- Chemical spill response
Regulatory requirements aside, health and safety training can be whatever you want or need it to be. In addition, keep reviewing and improving your training materials continuously. As a result, you will build a knowledgeable and proactive workforce.
