Are All Accidents Preventable?

If there’s one discussion I’ve had with safety professionals over the years it has been the question…”Are all accidents preventable? If you limit yourself to one word with one syllable answers…without clarification, semantic interpretation or other definition in my opinion the answer has to be a resounding NO!  When you start to broaden the question, is when you can come to a place where a good answer might be yes or yes with a qualifying couple of over words…yes in theory, yes in hindsight.  But because we are human, we will all have accidents.

Every one of us knows of workplaces that have in fact been “accident free” for a time.  Non-reporting notwithstanding, it can be done.  But it can’t and won’t be sustained.  There will be an accident; it’s just a matter of when.  After a century of more or less serious safety management, we are still seeing thousands of accidents in the workplace.  So what do we do with the goal of “Zero Accidents?”  From the standpoint of accident prevention, that goal is just fine.  It is what all of us should shoot for, under the premise that it’s like “reaching for the stars.”  Even if we miss we landed on the moon.

As all accidents are based on human behavior, wouldn’t a better goal be Zero Accident Behaviors? If we eliminate unsafe behavior will we achieve zero accidents?  Still, many may argue that some things simple cannot be prevented.  So where does that leave us? We cannot prevent everything, but that doesn’t take away the responsibility for us to try as hard as we can within reasonable boundaries. And a great place to start is to eliminate those behaviors that cause the accidents in the first place.  Creating a habit of safe behavior is something that can be learned.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please that will drive behavior change, contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net

Instructor-led or Online Safety Training?

Many safety managers are proponents of eLearning safety training because it makes safety training accessible for users around the world. It guarantees a consistent training message and can easily manage who gets trained and when.  It can also include scheduling for continuous upgrades and retraining on an as needed basis.  It definitely can save money when companies who have a wide ranging diversified global workforce that requires training content anywhere at any time.

Knowing  some main differences between instructor-led training (ILT) and eLearning  training will make it easier to decide which one or combination should you use: 

·       While ILT is the one we are most familiar with it can have a high cost of implementation, both in terms of time and money.

·       ILT can have inconsistent messaging due to teaching styles and instructor knowledge or experience. 

·       With ILT time is taken away from work and training interrupts an employee's daily tasks

·       eLearning can save companies money, in terms of development hours, travel costs and employee time away from work

·       eLearning takes less time away from an employee's work day, as eLearning takes up 40-60% less time than classroom instruction

·       eLearning will allow employees more flexibility to access training when and where they have the time to do so

·       eLearning can be particularly suited for employees who are remote, travel or have a high turnover

·       eLearning can easily create personalized custom solutions for your training needs

·       eLearning has the reputation of being more convenient and cost-effective than classroom training.

·       e-learning can be particularly effective for retention because learners can revisit the courses as much as they want at any time for refresher purposes.

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Testing, feedback and reward are easily built into e-Learning making it an ideal method to reinforce behavior change.

For more information on AwardSafety products or services or other white papers please contact us at awardsafetyinfo@cox.net