The short answer is, never. Any company committed to continuous improvement will view training as an essential part of ongoing education and communication. While your idea of “training” may help you feel more secure, it’s important to recognize that training encompasses several components. To start, we should differentiate between two types: formal training and informal training or awareness.
Formal training should be based on the task inventory your company has created for each role. This ensures that work is carried out in the expected manner, sets clear employee expectations, and defines what constitutes acceptable performance. Formal training is often referred to as explicit training, where every step is clearly outlined, leaving no room for ambiguity.
On the other hand, informal training—or implicit training—allows for more subjectivity and creativity. It’s less structured and often revolves around the question: “How do we do things here?” Implicit training helps employees learn the company culture and problem-solving approach, even if it’s less rigid. Both explicit and implicit training are vital, but they serve different purposes in your overall training strategy.
A well-trained employee understands the risks they face and their operational parameters and knows when to escalate an issue by reaching out to a supervisor.
Worksite observations and feedback loops also play a key role in training. Regular feedback from leadership is invaluable, especially when employees are new to a role or following an incident. This helps them refine their performance and align with expectations. A strong observation program ensures that feedback and performance reviews are consistent, covering all employees throughout the year.
There are several triggers that should prompt new training or retraining, including:
- Change Management: New equipment, changing processes, new locations, suppliers, customers, or regulatory changes often require training to ensure employees stay aligned with the company’s evolving needs.
- Corrective Actions: When corrective actions arise from incidents or audits, they often highlight areas where training or retraining is necessary to prevent future issues.
- Incident Management: If an incident occurs due to a failure to follow established processes, training and awareness should be initiated. Even if an employee wasn’t directly involved, it’s crucial to ensure the broader team understands the added risks and learns from the event.
- Workplace Audits, Observations, or Inspections: Leadership involvement in field operations helps identify deviations from processes. These observations should lead to awareness training, and in some cases, retraining may be necessary to address areas where complacency has set in and processes have become normalized inappropriately.
- A comprehensive safety management system is incomplete without an integrated risk management component. This involves identifying, understanding, and mitigating potential risks to people, the environment, and property. A risk review or inventory can uncover vulnerabilities, whether related to supply chain fragility, business process changes, cybersecurity, or unforeseen incidents.
Behavioral Safety Training
An often overlooked but crucial aspect of safety training is behavioral safety. This approach focuses on identifying and addressing unsafe behaviors before they lead to accidents or incidents. Behavior-based safety (BBS) aims to understand the underlying causes of at-risk behaviors, whether they’re due to complacency, lack of awareness, or pressure to meet targets. By training employees to recognize these behaviors, both in themselves and their peers, companies can create a culture of proactive safety, where potential hazards are addressed before they result in accidents.
Behavioral safety training doesn’t just teach employees about procedures—it encourages them to take responsibility for their own safety and the safety of those around them. It fosters an environment where employees feel empowered to speak up when they notice risky behaviors and are incentivized to follow safe practices consistently.
Key elements of behavioral safety training include:
- Identifying unsafe behaviors: Teaching employees to recognize and report unsafe actions, both minor and major.
- Positive reinforcement: Encouraging safe behaviors by rewarding those who consistently demonstrate safe practices.
- Peer accountability: Creating a team culture where employees look out for each other, ensuring that unsafe actions are corrected before they escalate.
- Real-time feedback: Providing immediate feedback when unsafe behaviors are observed, offering corrective actions, and reinforcing safety best practices.
- By addressing behavioral risks directly, this type of training can help reduce incidents that are often linked to human error and create a more resilient, safety-conscious workforce.
The numbered examples above list 5 of the 8 Derisk Safety Management System (SMS) standards. These core elements are an interconnected collection of standards that, when implemented can, mitigate surprises, they help build resilience and navigate the future all while developing a continuous improvement culture.
For more information or a consultation reach out to Derisk Safety Management. We’re here to help your company de-risk and simplify safety management.
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