I know how to fasten my safety belt
On my latest flight, as I was sitting there listening to the flight attendant ask for my attention for the riveting ‘how to buckle my safety belt’ training, I once again wondered if anyone had actually ever sat in their seat with no idea how to get that safety belt together (it only fits together one way…if I can figure it out, anyone can). But this flight attendant mixed it up and added a little humor, which I found incredibly refreshing and I actually paid attention for the 30 seconds she asked of me. And yes, I do feel as though I buckled my safety belt a little bit better this time.
It reminded me that there are things we all have to do (I’m sure the safety belt training was not the highlight of her day), whether we like it or not. As a business, OSHA requires safety and health programs as well as employee training. How you deliver both of these can be a major difference in how effective your results will be. A good number of my clients have a very difficult time with effective training programs.
As I also spend a good part of my time training our clients and their employees, I gauge it like I do a regular conversation. Did I do ALL of the talking? If I did, I probably just had a terrible training session that will have little impact. Nobody likes being lectured…try to have your training engage responses, talking, feedback or some form of discussion. There are numerous tricks to doing this, but I recommend actually asking them what they think, how they do something, what they would change, or what I’m missing. Every successful training session I’ve done has turned into a discussion, rather than a lecture.
As long as you hit the requirements of the training, OSHA never said the training had to also be a sleep aid. For content, you should be able to rely on various resources to give you the materials you need so you can spend what little extra time you have making the training interesting. Call your broker or insurance carrier to see what resources they can provide and then take that information to make it yours.
And for the record, when you hear the ‘click’, you’ve done it right…you can sit back assured you have your safety belt on properly.
