Whether you’re a human resources professional or you’ve recently started leading safety training for your team, it’s important that you work to create engaging presentations when you’re teaching people how to stay safe at work. Here, we’ve gathered top engagement strategies on their toes during your safety trainings so you can rest assured that your message was well-received.
Popsicle Stick Method
As employees walk into your training, hand each person a popsicle stick with a number on it. Throughout your presentation, use numbers to randomly call on employees. This can work in a number of ways: you can call out a number to get an answer to a question, offer a giveaway prize, or to get someone to act out a scenario (if you do this, let the first employee called to the front choose the number of the person who will accompany them through the scenario). This fun way of keeping employees engaged helps to randomize participation and keeps employees listening and asking questions just in case they’re called on next.
Be Transparent
If you’re teaching a safety course to employees because a safety issue occurred in your workplace, don’t be afraid to address the incident head-on. By doing so, you allow employees a chance to share how they feel and voice any concerns that they have before you dive into your training. This can help stop side chatter and can help employees understand that their voices matter. A word of caution: set a timer when you do this at the start of the training so that it doesn’t take over your allotted time. If employees still have questions or comments when the time for discussing the incident has come to an end, invite them to talk with you privately after the training.
Use Fist-To-Five Polling
When you’re teaching new safety concepts to a large group, it can be tough to get a handle on whether employees are grasping the ideas you’re sharing. Asking employees to raise their hands and indicate their level of understanding (raising a fist means they don’t understand the concept at all while holding up five fingers means they feel like an expert–most employees will fall somewhere in between on most concepts) can help you understand whether you need to revisit misunderstandings or if it’s ok to move on to the next part of your training.
Get the Training You Need
If you’ve never worked in a training or teaching capacity before, it can be tough to figure out how to engage your audience and teach safety material. Working with a training company like Diamond Training Services can help you understand safety protocols and can give you the confidence you need to teach your employees how to work safely.
