In today's rapidly evolving work environments, ensuring the safety and well-being of employees is paramount. However, one aspect that often gets overlooked is the need for inclusive and simplified workplace safety training that caters to diverse learners. By recognising and accommodating the unique needs of individuals from various backgrounds, organisations can create a safer and more inclusive work environment.
Simplified workplace safety training that uses a mix of media, and selecting products and services that are simple for workers to understand and use, can play a vital role in enhancing safety for all.
Workplace safety training is essential for every employee, regardless of their role or experience level. In Australia, ensuring every worker understands what action to take in an emergency is part of the workplace's mandatory Emergency Plan. It can be tempting to develop and deploy a 'one size fits all' or 'one size fits most' but this can see diverse learners fall through the cracks.
What Are Diverse Learners?
These learners can include individuals with language barriers, cognitive or learning disabilities, and cultural differences, among others. This could also include workers who may not necessarily have issues with tradition learning techniques, but need training that takes into account other things like mobility issues.
Creating Supportive and Inclusive Learning Environments
Firstly consider your learning environment (whether physical or virtual). How do you get to know and communicate with your workers, contractors, and sub contractors? Do you offer them flexibility, variety and choice? Do you ensure they feel comfortable to approach you if they don't understand something? Do you use accessible language?
It's important that the entire team understands the importance of an inclusive approach. This requires you to consider whether there's any existing biases (both conscious and unintentional). How do workers view one another? Do they need to learn more about specific cultural groups?
It's also important to use learning material that uses inclusive language and examples to build engagement. You can use printed material, videos, animations, and graphics such as diagrams and imagery. Incorporate the different learning styles into your approach:
The Role Of Simplified Systems
When selecting products for your business, consider how all types of workers will use those products. Are they intuitive? If there are instructions, are they easy to understand? Are they displayed in appropriate locations? As an example, Vanguard Wireless' nurse call triggers and evacuation triggers feature a very simple CALL or EVACUATE button that workers can press to create an emergency alert. These buttons are complemented by two lights that indicate that the alert has been SENT and RECEIVED. Customers receive posters that can be displayed next to each trigger and used during inductions, toolbox talks, and other training sessions.
Consider Integrations
Integrating products or services with existing systems can also assist in training and development, as your workers will already be familiar with how those work. Integrations can also improve transparency, simplify processes, and deliver seamless experiences.
For example Vanguard Wireless integrate with Irongate Solutions and 3D Safety, businesses that provide site security solutions to construction and industrial sites. With the integration installed, all the electronically locked gates and turnstiles unlock when an evacuation is triggered, allowing workers to leave the site quickly without having to scan or swipe their site access cards. For diverse learners, this means they don't need to think about what to do during an emergency event, which can be stressful enough.
Businesses can also choose to set their workers up with Vanguard Wireless' smartphone app. If the worker has their phone with them - and location services turned on - the business can see who is still on site using geofencing. This is particularly useful for mobility challenged workers or workers who may have issues hearing or seeing the alerts, and thus might not have evacuated the site.
Is It Time To Review Your Current Processes?
From a safety perspective, it's imperative that you regularly review the products and services you're using, and how you train your workers on use of these, to ensure the important information is being learned by workers at all learning levels. Regularly seek feedback from stakeholders at all levels to ensure you're achieving objectives so all workers feel informed, safe, and secure. Incorporating these strategies into your workplace safety training so you can empower diverse learners and foster a culture of safety and inclusivity.