Workplace Safety Training: Don’t Become a Statistic 

A best practice guide to reducing risk and ensuring compliance. 

£21.6 billion. 

According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE), this was the approximate total cost of workplace self-reported injuries and ill health in 2022/23. 

In 2023/24, 33,700,000 days were lost due to work-related ill health and injuries. 

These are sobering statistics that paint a bleak picture of workplace risk. Not to mention the incalculable human cost.  

The good news? With the right workplace health and safety training, your organisation can reduce risk and protect your employees.

The first step to mitigating workplace risk is comprehensive health and safety training.  

First of all, what does the law say?

In the UK, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 “requires you to provide whatever information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of your employees”.

In Ireland under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, employers’ duties include: “Providing information, instruction, training and supervision regarding safety and health to employees”.`

On an EU level, Council Directive 89/391/EEC — Measures to improve the safety and health of workers at work requires that employers: “ensure each employee receives adequate health and safety training relevant to their job”.

The fallout from inadequate safety training

The consequences of a lack of safety training can be devasting.  

In August 2020 a US-based employee of an electrical services company died after a falling from a ladder while working on lighting fixtures. The power to the fixtures had not been turned off and the employee experienced an electric shock, after which he fell from the ladder and struck his head.  

The OSHA investigation found that the employee had not been properly trained in hazardous electrical work.  

In the UK, a waste management company (Rainbow Waste Management) had to pay out over £200,000 in fines and costs following the death of a 24-year old worker in June 2013. The victim had been driving a motorised loading shovel from outside the cab and had reversed the vehicle with the bucket raised. The bucket dropped onto the victim, and he died from severe crush injuries to his head.

When it came to the court case, Rainbow was unable to demonstrate that thorough training had taken place.

Common safety training challenges

There are challenges that come along with providing high-quality safety training. Many employers still rely on established manual systems to ensure safety training compliance, which can limit opportunities for improvement. 

#1 Not integrating EHS and LMS software 

Many organisations keep their EHS and LMS (Learning Management System) separate. This makes it difficult to assess whether training programs are making an impact and reducing safety events.  

Separate systems also make it difficult for management to identify possible knowledge gaps. This can lead to training programmes that do not fit the current needs of employees and that don’t address the specific risks they face. 

Finally, the administrative burden of disparate systems is a significant pain point for employers. Time spent on reconciling data and manually managing training programmes can lead to increased costs, especially for organisations with dispersed workforces. 

#2 Maintaining training standards for the entire organisation 

Manual systems leave little room for adapting to constantly changing safety standards and protocols. This is even more apparent in businesses with operations in several locations, both domestic and international.

Ensuring contractor safety training is up to scratch is made more onerous by having to manually follow up about documentation and records. This can cause significant delays in contractor onboarding and the commencement of work. 

Relying on manual systems can also limit the scope and style of training that organisations offer employees. For example, keeping track of blended learning (classroom and e-learning) could lead to duplication of work as management must track progress over 2 different systems. 

#3 Showing training compliance 

As traditional training management systems tend to be paper based, there is the requirement for tracking and storing physical records.

Examples can include attendance records, proof of certification (for forklift driving, working at height, DOL/OSHA card in the US, SafePass in Ireland etc), evidence of updated training, date of training expiration, and many more.

Keeping track of these records is vital, particularly if an incident occurs and the investigation requires proof of training compliance. Management also must keep up with training expiration dates and arrange for refresher training. 

This is a time-consuming task for training managers, involving potentially thousands of documents in multiple locations. 

Best practices for workplace safety training

We asked some of Econoline’s training and learning experts for their advice on implementing successful EHS training programmes. When making the move to software, it’s important to assess the following: 

#1 Select an LMS that scales quickly 

Ideally, your LMS will scale with the developing needs of your business. It should be easy to roll out to employees, with easy onboarding and self-serve enrolment (depending on how your workforce is going to be trained). Your chosen LMS should be able to cope with large-scale enrolment of employees. 

Your LMS needs to let you track training compliance for both direct employees and external contractors. With recordable safety incident rates typically 3 times higher for contractors, they can be at greater risk.  

An LMS that scales quickly will also let you remain compliant with changing regulations and policies, while also standardising your organisations approach to training. 

#2 Prioritise employee engagement in your training 

Ultimately, you want your users to actively engage with the LMS, so fulfilling training requirements becomes less of a chore. 

When choosing an LMS, it’s important that you are aware of what the end-user experience will be like. Is the software easy to navigate? Can it be accessed via mobile for employees to complete at their convenience?  

The format of training that is provided is also key. Multi-modal learning (videos, quizzes, real-world scenarios) encourages engagement with subject matter. Classroom-based lectures aren’t effective for every training course, so it’s best to have a wide range of possibilities. 

#3 Integrate your EHS and LMS 

Integrating your EHS and LMS gives you a much greater understanding of training impact. You can view training metrics alongside incident reports, safety observations, audits, and hazard assessments. 

This is especially useful in judging the effectiveness of your training courses. For example, by analysing training completion rates and performance data against incident and near-miss trends, you can identify potential areas of improvement. 

This level of oversight means that you can proactively re-assess your training content, rather than reacting after an incident has occurred. It also makes it easier to provide training relevant to employee’s day to day tasks, as you have a full understanding of the risks they face. 

#4 Keep a detailed audit trail 

Your chosen LMS should track training progress and completion for every employee. Crucially, it should be able to notify managers when training has expired or has not been completed – before an employee steps onto a worksite.  

An LMS that can assign and manage actions means that employee training is less likely to slip through the cracks, whether on an individual or organisational level.  

Having all training documentation stored in one central location makes proving compliance much simpler for training administrators, particularly in large organisations. 

Conclusion

In this post, we have seen that manual systems create unnecessary risks. The right LMS eliminates compliance headaches, reduces incidents, and keeps your workforce safe.

Econoline’s LMS gives you complete control over the safety training process. Available in 22 languages, it easily integrates with our EHS platform to deliver training tailored to your employee’s needs.