Developing safety expertise in your staff is critical to ensuring their safety, and this expertise is developed through effective training. A staff with expertise will understand how they should act within the workplace in order to minimize risk and respond to crises effectively. Safety training provides the collective understanding of safety protocols that puts the entire team on the same page, allowing accurate and appropriate responses in case something goes wrong.
While recurring safety training may seem redundant to workers, it is important to recognize that work and safety are always integrated rather than two separate entities. Proper safety enhances lab output by minimizing incidents and downtime. As such, staff members must understand that they cannot attend to their jobs without properly adhering to safety measures.
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Fostering safety confidence through effective training
Providing workers with proper training allows teams to feel confident within their workplace, which results in high-quality outcomes and fewer incidents. Understanding how to implement quality responses in case of an emergency provides workers with enough independence to keep institutions moving smoothly.
“If employees have all the information they need on a process or procedure, have had hands-on training, and have someone knowledgeable they can go to if they need to make changes or have additional questions,” says Becky Grunewald, the associate director of environmental health and safety at UC Davis Health in California, “then they can have peace of mind that they are working safely and not in danger of any long-term or short-term harm.” It is important to make sure that every member of the team has adequate knowledge to implement protocols that keep the entire team safe, even when a manager might be absent.
Understanding how to implement quality responses in case of an emergency provides workers with enough independence to keep institutions moving smoothly.
Alongside independence, safety training also provides a sense of team reliability. Having the entire team on the same page results in collective confidence, which is necessary to ensure the safety of the workplace at large, as there is a sense of security that arises knowing that every member will respond to emergencies with the same level of preparedness.
So, how can labs identify and then offer effective safety training for their staff? Before any training can be offered, a learning needs assessment (LNA) should be conducted.
Conducting a learning needs assessment
To find the right training approach for your team, it is key that a LNA is conducted to personalize training in accordance with the needs of your workplace and staff. An LNA is the process of asking questions, evaluating answers, and considering organization performance in order to identify areas in which staff need additional training. In short, the learning needs assessment is the path to get to where you want to be. According to the Association of Talent Development1, there are a set of steps to go through in order to successfully conduct an LNA—here’s an adjusted version tailored for lab safety LNAs:
1. Conduct an organizational scan: Organizational scans involve solidifying the context behind the learning needs assessment by examining documentation, reports, existing training solutions, and more. In an LNA for lab safety, consider reviewing standard operating procedures (SOPs), equipment, chemicals inventory, current safety training literature, and past incident reports, particularly recurring incidents. This information will help you tailor the training.
2. Collect data to identify performance, learning, and learner needs: Speak to leadership and bench staff about their existing safety expertise. Do they feel comfortable in the event of an emergency? Do they know what to do? Supplement these conversations by examining performance reviews and incident reports.
3. Analyze data: Comb the collected data for gaps in staff safety knowledge and symptoms of systemic issues (e.g., poorly defined SOPs). Weigh the magnitude of these gaps against each other, which will help you prioritize them when you develop a training plan.
4. Deliver data analysis feedback: Ultimately, labs are businesses, and it’s up to you as the lab manager to justify the time and money needed for safety training. Collate the analyses you’ve conducted and your recommendations to deliver to senior leadership, making the case for why additional safety training should occur and why your recommendations will help solve tangible problems and, ultimately, protect your staff.
5. Begin designing training: Once you’ve received buy-in from leadership, you can begin designing and implementing effective safety training that is tailored for your lab’s staff, their unique learning styles, and their current expertise.
Implementing effective safety training
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, there are several methods of safety training.2 For example, the traditional route of formal classroom training is classic as it ensures that information is presented clearly in a way that most can retain information. While in-class training is the most efficient because it reaches a large audience in a limited time, it also lacks the engagement that keeps students present. Some attendees may miss important information because they are spacing out or bored. Formal classroom training may be a viable starting point and can work well to engrain standard knowledge; however, such instruction should be supplemented with other approaches to bring out its true potential. Managers should carefully evaluate what can get through to employees utilizing in-class training and what might be more difficult to grasp.
An alternative to classroom training is peer-to-peer training. Often manifested as on-the-job training, peer-to-peer training is effective because teaching others reinforces those concepts in yourself, demanding constant interaction and face-to-face conversation. However, peer-to-peer training may be less effective if both the teacher and the student already have similar levels of expertise. Seek to pair up the right people to make the most of this option.
The final approach to consider is live demonstrations, which implement visual learning techniques that engage audiences more effectively. Lab training plans should utilize demos within their program to showcase information that might be difficult to understand through lectures. Offering a live or recorded demo will provide attendees with a visual aid to refer to, eliminating barriers of vocabulary that may intervene in the understanding of a concept.
While in-class training is the most efficient because it reaches a large audience in a limited time, it also lacks the engagement that keeps students present.
Ultimately, lengthy training sessions of any kind can make attendees feel bored and drained. So, lab managers should utilize a combination of approaches to achieve well-rounded results, tailored to the needs of a diverse set of learners and offering variety that will encourage engagement.
Continuous reinforcement
Even if your staff complete a course or training session, safety training should never be “over” in your lab. Working in a lab safely requires diligence and consistency, demanding regular reinforcement. As such, safety training must be baked into the fabric of your lab’s day-to-day operations.
Divya Krishnamurthy, the senior director of workplace operations and safety at Lyndra Therapeutics, believes that “involving safety as part of the work, instead of an afterthought or checkbox exercise,” is key in ensuring that staff members adhere to safety protocols.
Grunewald adds, “Ideally, safety training is embedded into processes and standard operating procedures. That way, when you are working in the lab, as you learn a task, safety is part of it and is discussed with the person who is training you. And if you are innovating and developing a new process, there would be an expectation that you assess the hazards and risks and include mitigation in your protocol. So that encompasses both peer-to-peer training and demonstrations.”
Establishing a proper safety training program is critical to building safety expertise in your staff. It will minimize risk to staff, facility, and reputation. Employing varied, tailored teaching methods is part and parcel to fostering safety expertise.
References
1. https://www.td.org/content/atd-blog/the-what-why-and-how-of-needs-assessments
