Dedicated safety training is necessary for every organization. These safety sessions are set up as immersive experiences by design because the knowledge employees gain is fundamental to keep themselves and others safe on the job.
Workers that attend safety training courses are able to dig into the material without distractions to fully engage with the topics through interactive discussions and evaluations. The knowledge employees gain about safe working practices from experienced safety professionals leads to fewer injuries in the workplace, fewer lost days due to accidents, and fewer production and manufacturing stops.
Many organizations operate as if safety education begins and ends with these classroom-style workshops. And the educational foundation provided by these workshops is vital. But this approach overlooks the importance of building upon this safety foundation with follow-up safety coaching. On-site, personalized coaching with a professional safety coach is a pivotal follow up to safety workshops that ensures employees fully grasp safe working concepts in theory and in practice. Hands-on coaching gives employees valuable situational awareness and tailored guidance to apply what they’re learned to specific industry standards and regulations.
Knowledge In and Out of the Classroom
It’s one thing to read about how an engine uses fuel to power a car. It’s another to get under the hood and understand how to tear down an engine. But both pieces need to work together to successfully fix the fuel injector in a car. This is why in-classroom learning and on-site coaching work best in tandem.
Employees pick up on safety habits faster and more easily when they can apply what they’ve learned to their job roles directly. An in-person coach observes which challenges an organization’s employees face consistently to give detailed direction on specific safety habits that curb employees’ unique issues. This is how a safety professional further boosts an employee’s retention of safety concepts. Applying the concepts in real-time to actual tasks and equipment used by the employee draws a straight line from the idea to the practice in an employee’s memory.
Specialized Safety Knowledge
Safety professionals are well-versed in core safety concepts. This is ideal for in-classroom teaching where standardized lessons are necessary to instruct employees with a wide variety of prior safety familiarity. But applying generalized concepts can feel impersonal when employees have particular issues related to their individual job duties. High-level safety directives can also be overridden or less applicable when faced with specific industry standards and regulatory requirements.
Safety coaches working in person laser focus on the distinct needs of individual industries and organizations. Their familiarity with core safety concepts is fine-tuned to meet the unique issues individual organizations want and need to be addressed. This also makes safety training more accessible and personal for the employees being coached.
The process improvements and safety knowledge applied directly from Amerisafe’s in-person coaching to employees’ tasks and workflows give employees a greater stake in their company’s safety goals. Partnering with Amerisafe for on-site and in-person safety coaching also details parallels between safety practices and direct worker responsibilities to encourage employees to engage with an organization’s culture of safety. Outlining this additional layer of context casts safe working habits in a new light for employees. This aligns employees’ work with their organization’s safety goals and connects employees with safety habits that are directly applicable to their day-to-day lives.
