Couldn't you just record (video or voice-only) the report to make it easier, and then just extract the information you need? Not only would this remove the burden of trying to write it all down; it would minimise the "Chinese Whispers" effect of someone else interpreting what was said and avoid the potential "static" of trying to write information down - not everyone is comfortable or competent with writing, and then the choice of words can be interpreted differently by various people because there is no sensory information accompanying the words, and the choice of words is not always careful or deliberate, which can also have an impact in how they are understood.

In addition, a competent facilitator (NOT an interviewer or interrogator) should be able to ask relevant and well-considered questions and allow the person to answer, using effective active listening skills and tools to ensure the account is sufficiently explored and recorded.

If the discussion is recorded using a webcam or tripod, the facilitator will also be able to have their full attention present with the person, creating a much higher degree of rapport and trust, which is likely to give a much better result all round.

Worth considering??

I think there are a lot of organisations that reacted in a kind of 'knee-jerk' fashion to implement controls, without having properly assessed the risks. Not only is a 'knee-jerk' solution likely to be flawed because the emphasis is more on being seen to do SOMETHING (anything!). Early on in the pandemic, everything was unfolding and we didn't know much about it. As time went on, not only did we learn more, the parameters also started changing. This highlights the importance of a number of key points. Do more research and ask more questions to really understand the risks and evaluate your best, most effective options for managing (hierarchy of controls). From then, it is vitally important to keep circling back to review the controls and their effectiveness, as well as identifying what has changed since the previous review - we shouldn't be putting controls on 'automatic' and reviews should genuinely examine the parameters of hazards, risks and controls.

Well said, and I would also add that there is definitely a benefit in using a process where people actively write their contributions on post-it notes and place them on the wall to create the Bow-Tie diagram - not only more actively engaging them, but at a deeper unconscious level, you are activating a greater sense of ownership and making what is usually a more abstract and conceptual process much more tangible. Then photograph the results and convert them to graphics. I don't think we really need the fancy software as much as we need to engage and involve people in capturing their experience and insights. There is also a degree of acknowledgement in asking them for their input, and it's often a lot easier to DO these than to sit around and just talk about them.

This also highlights the importance of educating project managers who review and decide (or significantly impact decision-making) on awarding contracts. I remember attending a seminar - I think it was put on by WorkSafe - where a H&S Manager from a major construction company talked about how he was working with his project managers to look past the $$$ on tender documents and ask more questions during the RFP / tender process. I remember he made a point of saying he was coaching them to ask more analytical questions, especially to look more closely at WHY a particular vendor was tendering $1M lower than their competitors, to look for where they might be taking shortcuts, or also to consider where a contractor might be trying the old construction industry game of making their bid at a level they thought it would take to win a contract, then hoping to make up the difference in exceptions. So there should be more due diligence on both sides of big contracts.

Too many people working in compliance are so narrowly focused on controlling things that they have lost sight of their sense of humour.

At the same time, not all 'safety humour' is created equal. I have seen too many attempts at trying to make things funny but that just end up cringe-worthy or shooting themselves in the foot!

Before Product Safety Cards became 'a thing', I was training factory workers in quality improvement and H&S. They worked with a range of chemicals, so it was important that they understood the hazards, risks and controls. It didn't help that English was not their first language, and they were, as one might reasonably expect from unskilled labour, not particularly sophisticated or extensively educated.

After a very, very successful experience of providing workers with tailored literacy and numeracy training in partnership with Adult Reading and Literacy Association (ARLA), and having completed more training myself in Accelerated Learning and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, I had an epiphany while trying to teach them to navigate their safety data sheets. I gave a copy of one SDS to two of the more literate workers and asked them to highlight all the words they didn't understand or were not sure of. And as you might expect, the documents came back covered in highlighter! So we took a step back and asked ourselves what was the actual purpose / intent of this training. We concluded that the key aim was NOT actually about being able to read our safety data sheets; the most important thing was for them to have important information they could easily use if there was an emergency.

So we simplified the language, cut out all the information that was not immediately relevant to them and their work, and we illustrated the documents wherever possible for clarity and ease of use. Instead of "Identification", we used a heading "What it looks like". Instead of 'nasal passages' (they told me when they asked the engineer what that meant, he told them something rather more rude....!!), we just said "nose".

Safety data sheets have their place, but it helps to remember they are written BY and FOR technical people. People on the factory floor need information in a form that they can use. When you remember that people are generally doing the best they can with what they know (if they knew better, they would DO better), one of the most useful things managers and leaders can do is to identify all the obstacles and work toward removing them. Not only is that approach a lot more effective; it also creates trust, rapport and engagement all along the way.

This example is one of the many small pieces of great leadership from their management team that ultimately led to productivity improvements so massive that it caught the attention of corporate managers, who kept coming to the site to find out how it was done. Unfortunately, most of those corporate managers just wanted a quick fix and never really grasped the long, dedicated process undertaken by the site management team - I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work alongside them and contribute to developing their people.

An interesting case somewhat related to this thread.....

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/big-court-bill-for-cops-in-proceeds-of-crime-case-against-business-owner-convicted-over-health-and-safety-fatality/7FFGGEYWDQWDMVNTLNDZLJHX7M/

Good on YOU!!!

My sister sent me this cartoon.....

Great way to leverage a requirement to make it a point of personal connection!

Why do they have to be separate??
McDonald's, for example, develops its Station Operation Checklists (SOCs) with both procedural and safety considerations. It just meant that when I was delivering their safety training, I had to pull out the safety points and highlight the reasoning behind the requirements.

What does it take to make key messages stick in worker safety training?

Another thought about training - a slight side track, but still relevant..... I have just made this realisation in organising learning content for an online induction process and reference library. It might mitigate some of the challenges of getting key messages across in training.

Neuroscience, instructional design and various learning methodologies recommend following a structured learning process. In my training, we were taught to plan training using thus sequence: WHY, WHAT, HOW, WHAT IF / WHAT ELSE, which would then naturally segue into the next step, following the same sequence. (Which means we really need to be a lot clearer about the intended outcomes and plan accordingly, for maximum effectiveness - but that's a whole other topic!).

This model suggests that learners are typically naturally attuned to one or more of these questions, with the majority of learners falling into the WHAT quadrant. But if a learner (like me!) is a WHY learner, they need to understand the purpose and context of the content before they can attend to information. If you don't give them the WHY at the start, they will be distracted as they try to figure it out - and it is even more disastrous if you haven't figured out the WHY and articulated it clearly in the training! So the sequence has been developed to most naturally meet the needs of all learners.

By way of a side note, I have also found that most engineers seem to live in the WHAT IF / WHAT ELSE quadrant - they tend to clean up any ambiguity as they seek clarity and certainty by querying specific examples. If there is any 'exception to the rule', they will find it and put the rule to the test! Trainers can sometimes see this type of learner as being confrontational or difficult because they challenge and question everything, but they actually do all of us a great service by helping to clarify concepts.

What I have started doing when putting online content together is to start with some questions for the learner that relate to the key messages we want them to get from the learning module. So rather than following that old formula of "this is what I am going to tell you, here it is, and now I am going to tell you what I have told you" (although it must be said that repetition has its place!), we can "prime" the learner to seek those messages during the module. Questions are like little 'hooks' or 'magnets' - the unconscious mind will naturally and effortlessly look for those answers and feel a sense of satisfaction when they discover them. And then they are much more likely to have the answers when it comes to the assessment, without requiring oversimplification of the assessment.

Having said that, to be effective, questions need to be clearly articulated, simple (avoid long sentences and dependent clauses), direct (avoid passive voice!), and focused on one key message for each question.

What might be possible if we made safety training more meaningful and effective?

Classic example of implementing a "knee-jerk" measure without properly assessing the hazrds, risks and full range of control options, as well as whether or not they can actually enforce control measures.

I still remember attending an NZISM presentation by an NZTA employee a number of years ago, where he observed that NZ tends to implement regulatory requirements with a rather naiive expectation that making a law was going to immediately lead to changed behaviours and compliance - no thought given to whether or not the requirement could (or would) be consistently enforced. Just like common workplace safety requirements, what you ignore or don't enforce becomes the actual rule.:chin:

It may reassure workers, but measuring body temperature isn't really that effective as a control. Someone can be asymptomatic and still be infectious. Also, by the time they are showing obvious symptoms such as a fever, they would have already become infectious. It can be useful information, just don't rely on it to "do the heavy lifting."

After about 9 years of classical ballet and abut 6 of jazz ballet, with a few actual performances behind me, I went on to try Bollywood and Kathak (North Indian classical dancing). This was particularly challenging because the basic rules for ballet are exactly the opposite of the rules for Bollywood and kathak (i.e., for ballet, your weight is on the balls of your feet, you land softly "as if there is no floor", taking the impact through flexing your knees, and your hand/ arm movement is on the opposite side of the body than the foot. In Bollywood and kathak, your weight is on the heel, you stamp your feet quickly and with impact (I once got in trouble with my first ballet teacher for stamping my foot when I became impatient with my own progress!!), and the hand/arm movement is on the same side as the foot! But it was good exercise for my brain.

Someone once said that dancing is actually just falling and catching yourself / your balance again all the time, and making it happen so it looks graceful.

Here are a few photos from some of my experiences, including some of the performances. :-)

That combination creates such an amazing spectrum of skills and awareness - I'm sure your work really benefits from developing technical knowledge and skills and complementing that with physical activity, music and creativity. I wish I could play violin or viola, or even cello - such beautifully expressive instruments!

Great discussion! I also have extensive training and experience in adult learning and neuroscience, and it is a constant source of frustration to see how much training is limited to "what" and not enough emphasis on "why". If people don't understand "why", how can we expect them to apply information intelligently or make good decisions about it?!?? Even more concerning is that if we don't take them through the reasoning and "why" behind a safety requirement, they are likely to insert their own ideas and assumptions, which may take them into unsafe territory.

One of the challenges is that so many people have been trained and assessed as "competent" based on inadequate instructional design and flawed competency assessment tools. All too often training perpetuates the narrow focus on "what", with the unspoken "why" being something along the lines of "Because it's a regulatory requirement" or "Because it's Health and Safety" - which, of course, doesn't really explain much of anything for anyone! How do we go about breaking this cycle of mindless indoctrination??

We also have to start realising that a so-called subject matter expert (SME) is not automatically a good trainer. "Training" focuses too much on just the inputs. "Learning" focuses on outcomes and requires much deeper understanding of human factors such as neurological and psychological elements. Too many SME 'trainers' just think it is about "downloading" information. Even some attempts at getting learners to interact will fail if learners are not engaged and the trainer is not listening and responsive to the needs of learners (for example, I have been delivering training in circumstances where there was lack of trust and underlying resistance to their managers. I paused the training delivery to put this discussion on the table and clear the air before trying to proceed with our agenda).

Making matters worse is that too many training providers rely on the lowest level of competency, which is essentially being able to remember and repeat something - using assessments with obvious multiple choice answers that don't require any real processing or thinking, just regurgitating data. Multiple choice answers are easy to mark and more likely to get a 'pass' result so the provider will get paid, but being able to select the right option presented to them on a plate doesn't really verify understanding, and it often doesn't translate to workplace behaviours.

If more training was designed and delivered according to best practices in instructional design and based on understanding meaningful competency requirements (a per Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning, for example), with assessments aimed at genuine competency outcomes rather than just ticking a box to move on to the next thing, we might start making some headway.

I discovered a Tesla information panel with a QR code.
Thank you - I learned something new today!