See how setting up your EHS training to focus on building a “culture of compliance” can help your business handle the changes that comes with new legislation and compliance demands.
Fostering an effective environmental, health, and safety (EHS) compliance program can be challenging for many businesses. With so many new laws and rules to stay on top of, it’s hard to ensure your workers are all fully aware of — and engaged in — the changes that need to happen. By creating an accessible culture of compliance, employees will be able to thrive, meet changing regulatory requirements, and accommodate a diverse set of needs.
EHS training is vital for ensuring employees are maintaining compliance while performing their daily duties, while also establishing a strong EHS culture that makes compliance a priority.
In this article, we outline our top tips for using EHS training programs to build a culture of compliance.
1. Lead by example
Promoting a positive company-wide culture requires the example to be set from the very top of the company. Leaders should prioritize living by the good behaviors that epitomize and reinforce the established EHS program, demonstrating the holistic values of the company, and displaying them across all interactions with their teams every day.
2. Promote positive experiences
Creating a positive culture requires positive perceptions.
Ensure the initial experience with health and safety training itself is positive. When creating your program, consider the diverse needs of your team and accommodate your employees’ preferences for the type, content, and style of training. This will demonstrate and encourage a mutual respect and greater engagement. On top of showing respect and consideration for the differences in your workers, it also establishes a foundation of compliance that all employees are capable of achieving in their own unique ways.
3. Acknowledge diversity
To understand what type of EHS program will accommodate the varying needs of your workers, and therefore be the most effective, take time to explore their preferences. For example, this can include establishing the following:
- Virtual versus in-person training sessions
- All-day versus shorter sessions
- Identifying topics of interest or concern
- Any specific learning needs that should be taken into account
With this information, it’s much easier to develop an EHS training program that’s appropriate and accessible to your workforce.
4. Explore adaptive learning and micro learning
Adaptive and micro learning are both excellent alternative assistive learning methods that can help to make EHS training more accessible for workers at any level.
- Adaptive learning uses algorithms to tailor content and speed to fit the learner. It intuitively accommodates different learning styles and speeds to increase engagement and information retention. They usually begin with surveys or questions to establish a worker’s starting knowledge and preferred learn approach, adjusting the remaining training accordingly. This can make courses more accessible to those with dyslexia or other learning difficulties.
- Micro learning is an alternative way of addressing multiple learning styles simultaneously, combining discussion and online resources. It allows companies to create their own training courses using small, consumable doses of training that can be tailored to workers’ needs — as well as the needs of the company — making it a good method for promoting a strong health and safety culture.
5. Use a training matrix to track progress
Training requirements may vary from one employee to the next, depending on their level, department, or experience. Furthermore, for companies that operate across various countries, states, or jurisdictions, it can be particularly difficult to ensure consistency in compliance — as well as training.
A training matrix allows businesses to plan, track, and evaluate employee skills in accordance with all relevant regulations. Starting by mapping out the requisite regulatory requirements across the business, the matrix can then overlay individual employee training levels to ensure their corresponding training, skills, and experience match the requirements of their role.
This makes it easier to track legally required training and optional additional training so EHS managers can gain better insight into their employees’ compliance knowledge. New requirements can be added to the training matrix to keep all workers updated on recent legislation, ensuring training requirements are kept up-to-date as compliance requirements change.
6. Cover all your bases
Across a global organization, it’s highly likely there will be certain training requirements that are site-specific, whereas others will be more general training for the whole company. Be sure to identify and accommodate both of these types of training into your training program.
It’ important to adapt your training program to cover different areas — and keep these programs flexible to stay up-to-date as new legislation and regulatory changes emerge. Monitor the regulatory expectations in the jurisdictions in which you operate to ensure your training program is compliant across all areas you work. Companies must stay aware of forecasted changes and proposed legislation that could affect their training.
For instance, for a manufacturer with various production sites, health and safety training may need to be provided at three levels:
- Company-level training will cover evolving health and safety legislation, general safety technology, the company’s personal systems, company rules, and accident cases
- Workshop-level training needs to cover the workshop’s health and safety status, rules and systems, hazard measures, occupational illness and injury preventative measures, accident cases, and emergency response measures
- Production unit-level training will cover safety rules and procedures, accident cases, properties of personal protective equipment, and user instruction
Create a culture of compliance with EHS training
A successful health and safety culture goes beyond meeting basic compliance needs. It centers around employee attitudes in the workplace, feeling their needs being met — including key aspects of their mental and occupational health.
Your EHS training program is one of the most important tools to building a culture that’s both compliant and positive. Use your program to ensure you’re teaching workers about how health and safety is measured, and therefore valued, at your company. This will instill a sense of shared responsibility where everyone will look out for one another to set the foundation of a solid culture of health and safety compliance that’s proactively engaged in fulfilling requirements.
Find out how, with the right regulatory compliance information and insights, you can keep your teams better educated and aware of changes in the health and safety landscape. See how RegScan’s EHS Alerts can help your business stay ahead.