A tailored approach

IT'S GROUP training day. The lights in the room go down, the first slide on the PowerPoint boots up, and you immediately lose half your audience to surreptitious phone screens or simply staring into space. Or perhaps you’re delivering training online and you spot the tell-tale icon of the microphone being set to mute, or a blank screen and hurriedly explained “camera problems”.

And you know what? These situations are sadly bound to happen if you’re delivering a training package that hasn’t been specifically designed for the end users. Off-the-shelf training programmes aren’t as effective as something that’s geared towards the actual needs of the participants. One size definitely does not fit all. 

I’ve been a health and safety professional for… well… shall we say “a number of years”? Before I set up Safety Rocks – and this is one of the reasons I wanted to strike out and start Safety Rocks! – I went into companies and delivered training. But the problem was, when I got there, there were areas where the training I was delivering wasn’t hitting the mark. It wasn’t really relevant.

All organisations benefit from focused training. I really see this happening with larger organisations, especially companies for which Safety Rocks works now, such as MMID, Smith & Nephew etc. 

To make an actual difference, training needs to be specifically written and based on the real-life requirements of the organisation in question. Truly Tailored training, as delivered by Safety Rocks, requires development and thought – and knowledge of an organisation’s pain points. (When I’m creating training programmes, I literally say to the people for whom I’m working: “Tell me your pain!”)

Unsurprisingly, formulating this sort of training is time-intensive. It involves competency, understanding, and constant measuring of the impact that the training will have. It’s about creating a programme from scratch, rather than just tweaking existing materials. “Bespoke” is an overused (and misused!) word, but if you’re creating a successful, impactful training course, “bespoke” has to be taken literally. I’ve found that when I take the time to draw up a training programme designed to respond to an organisation’s day-to-day and future needs, I can really see improved engagement from the faces on my Zoom screen, or in the room. 

The generation game

As well as unique organisational issues and problem-solving exercises, Truly Tailored training needs to take into account the different generations present among the employees. If you’ve watched your teenagers go through GCSEs and A Levels, you’ll know that learning now happens in a very different style for Gen Z to the methods used for Generation X and Millennials. 

The generation that’s maturing now – growing up in a world defined by smartphones and instant access to everything, yet also boundaried by the pandemic lockdowns – is going to need to find its space in the world. Face-to-face conversation is no longer the effective, impactful (normal!) way to communicate that older generations understand. Us Gen X-ers may have become accustomed to balancing real-life interaction with our smartphones, but it’s also up to us to teach those that follow us how to learn.

For those of us born in the 20th century, reading longer texts makes sense to us as learners. But in our modern world of information overload, bite-sized nuggets of knowledge, flashcards and short-form video content are the ways to impart and communicate what we need to say. And despite worries about the influence of smartphones and social media, we need to acknowledge that technology plays a huge part in generating and improving training: for example, AI-generated avatars are getting better and better. And actually, even though for some of us, reading the printed page is the perfect way of absorbing information, there’s a lot to celebrate in terms of how technology is constantly pushing forward boundaries and helping training to be more effective.

It can’t be too long before AI is able to take a core curriculum that a training provider has developed, and then create different learning tools that work for Generation X, Millennials and Gen Z. The potential for AI to help us deliver training that’s not just tailored to organisations, but to individual human needs, is immense.

And this is perhaps the heart of blended learning: combining tech-driven work with real-life problem-solving exercises, blending not only the different methods of teaching, but also the needs of all generations employed by an organisation. 

Truly Tailored training and blended learning in action

Let me give you a real-life example of how Truly Tailored training and blended learning is working in the UK today.

Where does your milk come from? There’s more than a fair chance that the semi-skimmed you poured on this morning’s cornflakes came to you via Müller Milk and Ingredients Distribution (MMID). MMID owns six dairies and 10 distribution depots , across the United Kingdom, and collects more than a billion litres of raw milk annually, distributing to supermarkets, wholesalers and smaller shops across the country. 

MMID has reached a point of significant cultural maturity in terms of health and safety. Processes have been implemented which ensure that creating and maintaining a safe place of work is prominent in everyone’s day-to-day mindset. So, the next step is to concentrate on MMID’s people, shining a spotlight on improving behaviour. People are prone to failure – we all make mistakes, especially if we’re tired, stressed or emotional. But learning and thinking together about behaviour can ensure that a positive safety culture addresses everyone’s needs and creates a space where individual fallibility (and it could be any of us) doesn’t have a horrendous impact. 

There are around 1,700 learners at MMID, and at Safety Rocks created a Human Behavioural Modification Process and Programme of learning for them.  Essentially, it’s all about slowing down thinking, and understanding that because of the constant bombardment of information from phones, social media, television and other sources, are brains are often too busy to consider properly the situation right in front of us.

MMID’s culture is open and receptive to ideas from employees at all levels and as a business, they understand that collective improvements come from big and small suggestions. Changing the way we think affects the way we act, and positive change reinforces a proactive culture that prioritises risk awareness and safe working practices. 

Our unique methodology underlines that safety is a core company cultural value, which creates a healthier, more efficient work environment for everyone. 

We’re delivering the Human Behavioural Modification Programme via a blended learning: a pre-reading course (with materials to suit a broad range of users!) followed up with virtual learning. 

A future that works for everyone

Not so long ago, training would be delivered, and certification awarded, in terms of specific qualifications (level three, etc). But if we want to create a future that understands the needs of the people at its heart and puts safety front and centre of daily culture and behaviour, it’s time to embrace the truly tailored. 

Health and safety educators should all be delivering appropriate, needs-based training tailored to current and future organisational requirements, reacting to pain points and geared towards measurable, impactful learning goals. 

But that doesn’t mean qualification-awarding bodies are on the way out. Far from it. Safety Rocks is working alongside NEBOSH with its endorsed programme. Together we’re combining that understanding of what organisations really need with a proven measure of our training’s effectiveness in terms of impact is a winning formula!

Carla Crocombe is founder and managing director at Safety Rocks. For more information, visit www.safetyrocks.co.uk