Health and safety training topics to cover
Health and safety training content varies widely across industries. Even within a single facility, training differs for individual roles depending on the processes they follow. Here are some examples of topics you might consider covering with your team.
Site or facility safety training
One of the first things you should teach workers about is the site’s health and safety program. These are just some ideas for what you might discuss:
- Reporting injuries, incidents, and near misses
- Emergency evacuation procedures
- Notifying management of unsafe work conditions
- Location of emergency equipment
- Location of emergency access points
- Introduction to the EHS team
- Accessing first aid treatment
The idea is to ensure that workers know who to go to for help with health and safety problems. Doing so will help strengthen your site’s safety culture and get employees more involved in the EHS program.
Process equipment
Equipment safety is essential to any training program, and it varies widely from business to business. This area of health and safety includes all sorts of topics, like:
- Handling and storing equipment
- Inspecting and testing equipment before use
- Selecting the right equipment for each task
- Red tagging defective equipment
- Equipment shutdown procedures
When creating process equipment training materials, make sure you use images, videos, and diagrams of the actual equipment your team uses. It’s too confusing for employees when the actual equipment doesn’t match what they see in training.
Hazard identification and control
Workers should also have the skill of identifying and controlling the hazards they come across. This applies to all work settings, where one employee’s observation can help protect everyone within the same area.
Here are some examples of hazard-related training topics:
- Identifying safety hazards
- Reading NFPA labels and safety data sheets
- Handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials
- Different types of hazards (fall, trip, chemical, noise, etc.)
- Lockout tagout safety procedures
- Controlling and removing hazards
- Creating a hazard-free work area
It’s important for workers to know that they can have a direct impact on site health and safety. By teaching a proactive approach, you can get workers to be your eyes and ears, reducing near miss and incident rates in the process.
Personal safety
Personal safety is another key component of health and safety training. It can include anything from ergonomics to situational awareness:
- Signs and symptoms of illness or injury
- Proper lifting techniques
- Posture and stance
- Ergonomic workstation setup and use
- Repetitive injury prevention
- Strategies for preventing illness
- Grooming and hygiene for personal safety
- Situational awareness at work
Discussing these topics will better equip your workers to protect themselves against safety risks. Plus, it’ll make sure they take an active role in hazard identification and control.
Interpersonal relationships
From verbal altercations to physical fights, there are all sorts of ways interpersonal relationships can affect workplace safety conditions. Consider adding these topics to your site’s health and safety training:
- Examples of workplace violence
- Types of harassment
- Workplace conflict resolution techniques
- Reporting instances of harassment or violence
- Diversity and inclusion
It’s all about creating a work environment where employees express their issues in a healthy way. And through training, you can set a standard of conduct so employees know what you will and won’t tolerate.
Emergency response
Employees play a huge role in emergency response. Oftentimes, frontline workers are the first ones on an incident scene. Their ability to respond quickly and appropriately for different scenarios can have a major impact on the outcome of the situation.
Training workers on these topics will empower them to act when emergencies happen:
- CPR and AED use
- Inspection and use of fire extinguishers
- Medical emergency response
- Emergency evacuation procedures
- Fire incident response
- Basic first aid
- Chemical spill response
Regulatory requirements aside, health and safety training can be whatever you want or need it to be. My best advice would be to conduct training all year round so safety stays top of mind. That, plus continuous review and improvement of your training materials, is a sure way to build a knowledgeable, proactive workforce.
