NTT Blog

What are the Benefits of Industrial Safety Training? How Can You Make the Most of It?

According to the International Labor Organization, more than 337 million workplace accidents occur each year. Together with occupational illnesses, these accidents are responsible for more than 2.8 million annual fatalities.

Forklifts are a major source of workplace fatalities. In 2013, a 27-year-old man was killed in a forklift accident at a California brewery. He sustained fatal injuries to the chest when the forklift rolled over. Common causes of forklift accidents around warehouses are:

• Lack of operator training
• Poor lighting
• Too much traffic
• The age of the forklift
• Speeding
• Carrying a large, elevated load
• Narrow or crowded aisles

As an employer, you have a legal and ethical responsibility to provide a safe workplace for your employees. This includes:

• Meeting industry-specific standards.
• Good-faith inspection of all workplace conditions.
• Posting relevant safety-related signs.
• Maintaining accurate records of all workplace accidents and illnesses.
• Providing formal industrial safety training in line with OSHA requirements.

Benefits of formal safety training

How can employees benefit from formal training as opposed to on the job safety training? Here’s a parable for you. A mother is teaching her teenage son how to roast a ham. She cuts off a three-inch section of the ham and wraps it carefully before putting it back in the fridge while she glazes and bakes the rest of the ham. “Why did you cut the end off?” the boy asks. His mother replies, “Because that’s what my mother used to do.”

This is the equivalent of on the job learning. The next time the curious young man sees his granny, he asks her why she cut the end off the ham before placing it in the oven. “It’s the only way it would fit in the pan,” she explained.

The dangers of informal training

In an informal training environment, employees’ learning is biased by the experiences of the trainer, who may have learned the ins and outs of the job as they went along and not had the benefit of any formal training themselves. In a formal, hands-on seminar, participants get a broader picture. They may be taught how to select the right tool for the job in order to avoid waste and operate at optimum safety levels.

Providing your workforce with formal training has other benefits, some more tangible than others. Among the tangible benefits are avoiding steep OSHA fines. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration increases its penalties for noncompliance with safety training regulations every year. As of 2018, a serious violation could attract a fine of more than $12,000; repeated or willful violations could see you paying a penalty of more than ten times that.

Among the intangible benefits you can expect are a motivated, engaged work force with an in-bred safety culture. People work harder for you when you invest in them, particularly where their well-being is concerned. Additionally, they will be trained to a uniform, up-to-date standard in line with current standards and regulations.

What you can expect from formal training

Industrial safety training need not be prohibitively expensive. For example, you could invite a qualified training company to give a three-day, in-house technical and operational workshop on boilers for around 12 students for less than $2,000. You would expect the company to provide:

• On-site instruction
• Textbooks
• Classroom consumables
• Completion certificates
• Travel and shipping logistics

You would provide a suitably equipped classroom with projection screen, whiteboard, etc., a dock facility to unload training equipment and facilities to transport the equipment to and from the classroom.

How to get started

National Technology Transfer, Inc., offers customized, hands-on training directly to your site or at one of our hundreds of locations throughout the United States. Our team of expert instructors one of the largest in the industry, integrate comprehensive, skills-based classroom training with computer-based training, electrical and mechanical qualification training, training management services, and workplace safety consulting. Our goal is to help your employees become more efficient while staying safe and minimizing downtime.

We offer seminars in a variety of topics, including:

• Electrical training – Codes and standards; Safety; Maintenance
• Mechanical training – HIVAC; Codes and standards; Safety; Maintenance; Fluid power

Why not contact us today to talk about how NTT Training, can help your company achieve a more efficient, safety-conscious workforce.