Safety training plays a critical role in keeping employees safe at work. Whether it’s learning how to handle hazardous materials, follow lockout/tagout procedures, or respond to emergencies, safety training is meant to protect workers and reduce injuries. However, even the most well-designed safety programs can fall short if they don’t consider one important factor: the people actually doing the work. And what’s the best way to ensure training is tailored for these individuals? By asking them their thoughts on the training.
Unfortunately, employee feedback is often overlooked when safety programs are created or updated. Training may be rolled out from the top down, without asking employees what they think or what they need. This can lead to programs that look good on paper, but fail to make an impact on jobsites.
The truth is, gathering and using feedback from employees can lead to more effective, relevant, and engaging safety training, and is absolutely necessary for any organization looking to get real behavior change from training. In this blog post, we’ll explore how employee feedback shapes better training, why it matters, and how your organization can use it to build a stronger safety culture.
Why Safety Training Sometimes Falls Flat
Safety training is supposed to reduce accidents, raise awareness, and help people work more safely, but not all training accomplishes these goals. Here are a few common reasons safety training doesn’t have the impact it should:
- Outdated Content: If training hasn’t been updated to match current procedures and regulations, learners will become distrustful of all of the information and choose to ignore it.
- Irrelevant Examples: Many training programs use generic examples that don’t match the risks workers actually face. For instance, a warehouse worker may sit through a training module on forklift safety even if the warehouse they work in doesn’t utilize forklifts. This will be seen as a waste of time by the worker, leading to them disengaging with the training, even when it gets back to relevant content.
- One-Size-Fits-All Approach: Oftentimes in an organization, a single training course might be delivered to everyone, regardless of job title or work environment. This can lead to employees taking the same training despite not facing the same risks or performing the same work.
- Low Engagement due to Boring Delivery Methods: Long PowerPoints, monotone lectures, or walls of text make it hard for people to stay focused. This leads to disengagement, which means workers won’t put what they’re being taught into practice on the job.
The problem organizations face is not that these exist, but rather that they will be hindrances to safety training for months or even years before they are ever discovered. The solution to this is to ask employees what works and what doesn’t.
The Role of Employee Feedback
Employee feedback means collecting opinions and suggestions from workers about the safety training they receive. This feedback can come in many forms, including:
- Surveys after a training session
- Interviews or focus groups with small teams
- Anonymous suggestion boxes or digital tools for comments
- Informal conversations between employees and supervisors
The most important thing is to actually listen to the people doing the work. These employees have firsthand knowledge of job hazards, unclear instructions, or parts of training that don’t match real life. When it comes to refining your training programs, there is no better source of information to pull from than the people taking your training on a regular basis. And you should be refining your training programs regularly. Remember: workplaces are dynamic, so training must be dynamic too.
When collecting feedback, be sure to ask workers about:
- Clarity: Was the training easy to understand?
- Relevance: Did the training apply to the employee’s actual tasks?
- Gaps: Was something important missing from the training?
- Usability: Can the employee apply what they learned on the job?
This kind of feedback can help managers and training developers build and revise programs to ensure they make sense and apply to the people they’re trying to protect. When revising training, be sure to prioritize updates based on the most pressing risks, and leverage existing tools to make the process simple and effective. If you utilize online training, then investing in an Learning Management System (LMS) with course customization options, such as Capability, is a wise decision.
Aside from the benefit of being able to better refine training programs, asking for feedback increases engagement. Employees who feel that their feedback is valued are more likely to engage actively in training sessions, which can enhance retention of critical safety information and promote a shared responsibility for workplace safety.
Real-World Examples and Results
Many companies have seen major improvements after listening to their employees.
Google is known for encouraging employee feedback in all areas, including training. In 2017, after their safety team noticed a drop in training participation, they surveyed employees and found that the courses were too long and not personalized, leading to a lack of engagement. They updated the training to include shorter, role-specific modules, and saw participation rates improve significantly.
Zappos, a company famous for its strong culture, includes employees in the design of all training programs. By inviting feedback early on in the design process, they’ve created a safety culture where employees feel ownership over the training and are more likely to follow it on the job.
Adobe has hands-on workshops they use to train employees, and the workshops are tailored based on employee feedback. In 2023, Adobe won 9 awards based on honest feedback from their employees
Involving employees in the training process builds trust and leads to better results. When workers see their input being used, they feel respected and they take training more seriously.
Best Practices for Gathering and Applying Feedback
Collecting feedback doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should be consistent. Here are some best practices:
- Make Feedback Part of the Process: Don’t wait for a major incident to ask for input. Build feedback into every training session by adding short surveys to the end of training courses or scheduling check-ins with supervisors.
- Use Multiple Methods: Some employees may be more comfortable sharing their thoughts in a survey, while others prefer to speak in a group. Offering different ways to give feedback makes it more inclusive. Be sure to include a way for feedback to be anonymous, as some employees may not feel comfortable sharing their opinion openly.
- Be Transparent About How Feedback is Used: Letting employees know their feedback matters encourages participation. Employees may be hesitant to adopt new training methods or content, even if the new training is based on their feedback, so be up front about what changes are being made and why.
- Close the Loop: After collecting feedback, report back. Send out an email or hold a quick meeting that explains what’s been updated. This shows employees their voices are being heard.
It’s also helpful to make feedback part of the culture. This will encourage employees to always be thinking about what could be improved in training or in the work the organization does, and it will help them feel safe when speaking up about what they feel needs to be changed.
Final Thoughts: Empowered Employees Make Safer Workplaces
Employee feedback is one of the most powerful tools a company can use to improve its safety training programs. When employees help shape the training they receive, the content becomes more relevant, engaging, and useful. This leads to higher rates of participation, fewer incidents, and a stronger culture of safety.
Safety training shouldn’t be something that’s done to employees, but rather, it should be built with them. Ask questions, listen carefully, and apply what’s learned, and your organization can turn training into a two-way conversation instead of a one-way lecture.
Empowered employees make safer workplaces. When people are included, they care, and when they care, they engage with the material, leading to increased training retention and a safer workplace.
Capability’s online safety training courses help to educate employees on workplace safety and health regulations, policies, and best practices. These courses cover a wide range of topics, all designed to fit the needs of various industries. To find the courses you need for your business today, click here.
