As a supervisor or manager, it’s essential you make sure all workers have completed the necessary workplace health and safety training to perform their jobs safely. Why is health and safety training important? Not only does it help to reduce incidents and illnesses on site, but it also helps you stay compliant with industry regulations.
Meet Henry, a supervisor who has been working at a construction company for the past year. During this time, Henry has found it extremely difficult to keep his employees engaged during training sessions.
No questions are ever asked during sessions and at times, he’s met with blank stares after he’s finished a lesson. Ensuring contractors complete their training is especially challenging. They regularly miss sessions as they join projects in various phases. It’s almost impossible to track which contractors have actually completed the necessary training.
Henry also has workers who aren’t fluent in English. It can be hard to know if they fully grasp the information since the sessions tend to move quickly. He uses Excel to track employee and contractor training and sends himself reminders for certification renewals. These incessant reminders quickly became overwhelming and in addition to all his other work, impossible to keep track of. So, what’s the solution?
Keep reading to discover three reasons your frontline needs health and safety training online and how it can be a game-changer for your organisation.
1. More convenient
First and foremost, online training is much more convenient as workers can complete training at their own pace. They can also access the coursework easily and take their time to understand the information in their preferred way.
According to the UK- E-learning Market Research Report 2022-2026, the eLearning market share will increase by $11.57 billion between the years of 2021-2026, and the global eLearning market will reach $491.35 billion by 2028 according to the Globe Newswire.
41.7% of Fortune 500 companies around the world, currently use eLearning options. To put this into perspective, the average number of employees in Fortune 500 companies is around 60,815. That means that about 12,679,928 employees use eLearning which is roughly the population of Tunisia!
It’s no wonder that eLearning has become more popular. It gives companies the opportunity to create their own custom online occupational health and safety courses. Organisations, like yours, can build their own safety courses, specific to their safety needs. With an eLearning platform, these courses can easily be uploaded into the system and updated when necessary.
We must stress that eLearning is by no means a replacement for in-class or on-site training, but a blended learning experience where the two are combined is highly recommended.
2. Easily trackable
Using online health and safety training courses in an eLearning platform allows supervisors and managers to easily track employee and contractor training. This is a game-changer for any organisation, as it makes it simple to see which team members have completed which training courses and when.
This type of system will also send automated reminders of when training needs to be renewed, making it easy for all supervisors to stay on top of renewals, ensuring compliance. Instead of using multiple Excel spreadsheets like Henry, supervisors can easily access their eLearning platform and in a few clicks, get a full training profile on their employees and contractors.
3. Stronger safety culture
According to the article, The Benefits of Safety Training Online, studies show that interactive learning online can increase retention by over 70%. This is because employees and contractors can revisit the content as many times as needed and take online assessments to test their knowledge. A more engaged workforce, who have completely absorbed the health and safety training, will ultimately result in a stronger safety culture.
This in turn will result in fewer incidents and illnesses, less downtime and company shutdowns, and increased productivity. IBM found that there is a $30 dollar (£ 24.6) increase in employee productivity for every dollar spent on eLearning. Furthermore, a study by the American Society for Training and Development discovered that the company’s profit margins rose to 24% when spending $1,500 (£ 1,232.6) a year on eLearning.
It’s evident that online training isn’t just beneficial to employees, but it also helps the organisation overall.
The bottom line
With eLearning, Henry can give his team engaging online health and safety courses and monitor their educational progress. This will give his company an added competitive advantage over others, as he can begin to uncover any inconsistencies or cases of noncompliance with training requirements.
Not convinced yet? Find out how our customers have benefited from EcoOnline’s learning software.