Notice the crowd reaction, suspense, participation, people in and out of their seats, competitive juices flowing and all in an ordered and relaxed environment. This can be achieved in small groups or as in this case with a large group of 40 people!
For those of you who conduct OSHA training, or training in any industry and on any topic; my hope is that this videos will demonstrate how you can make training so engaging and dynamic that the people will look forward to it, retain the information, be engaged and put it into practice; all achieved simply by having fun and not boring people to death!
Here are some tips on how to continually engage an audience, grab their attention and challenge them to improve safety-wise or take action when conducting a multi-hour, multi-day or a simple 5-minute toolbox safety talk:
- Use games, quizzes and/or activities
- Draw upon personal experiences
- Ask questions
- Present a scenario
- Use humor
- Have participants present a 5-min. talk, tell about their personal experience or participate in a role play
- Use suspense (to be continued after a break or on the next day)
- Use visuals (pictures, handouts, videos, text)
- Bring props for demonstration
- End topic or talk with a strong call to action
Over the course of the next weeks, I will be expanding upon these above items to further give you tips on how not to bore people to death, but rather engage them for better retention and move them to take action on what they learned, were made aware of or were reminded of during the training! Item 3 on my checklist above relates to another blog article I wrote a while ago. Check that out.
No more going through the motions! Let’s master our craft as safety trainers! Don’t just do the bare minimum, go above and beyond! What a privilege and opportunity it is to stand before a group of adults to challenge them to take action on new information learned. If people aren’t moved to take action and then actually go and put it into practice, then the trainer failed on some level. These tips certainly work for any public speaker or trainer in any industry!
Until next time,
Steve
Spanish OSHA Guy!
P.S. By they way, I train in English too!
I felt the need to write this because -no lie- when I first started safety training in 2006 and 2007, I conducted an OSHA 10 hour Construction training in Spanish for a client. Then after the training on a phone call with that client (speaking English to him the whole time), he said that he needed to schedule an OSHA 10 training in English. I proceeded to ask him what dates he would like. Then he said, “Ah, well, I need it in English not in Spanish.” I replied, “Well hey! I do it in English too.” He said, “Oh, you do?! OK, that’s great. Let’s schedule it then.” So, that’s why my motto and tag line is “OSHA Training that doesn’t bore you to death in English and Spanish!”