Safety Training: Part One

In the last ten years as a food manager, aside from compensation, I can say that one of the aspects of my career that I am always looking for are opportunities to learn and develop as a professional. In my assignments, most of what I do is the same as five, ten, or fifteen years ago. I certainly love what I do. Participating in safety is one component of work in which I have been able to grow the most.

Every single management position includes staff training duties. My involvement in safety training over the years has grown incrementally. At first I was engaged in conducting monthly safety training sessions. Later I was assigned to represent my restaurant in the department's safety committee. A few years after that I became the Vice Chair of the Committee. Finally I was fortunate to step into the position of the Chair of the Committee. Throughout this journey, I have to say that continuous training is the number one tool that you have as a manager to improve the safety of your business.

When I was a young cook back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I had no idea what safety was. I knew a little about training while I supervised junior high school and high school kids in the service of beach patrons. I learned about the importance of training one day as a nineteen year old that doing a poor job of training would be cause to be in hot water. My training consisted, usually, of learning from my friends. 

In one restaurant I worked in as a teenager we served something called "Strips and Cheese" or "Cheese Strips" depending on which snack bar you worked in. It was a local delicacy. I received the bulk of my restaurant training, or studied in a "Restaurant University," as a cook in a place called "Vic's At The Beach." Vic's was located on the strand in Huntington Beach, California, about a mile south of the pier. One of my tasks was to take fifty pound blocks of cheddar cheese, cut them down into two by four logs, and then run them through a grinder to make shredded cheese. 

I used knives that were dull. We did not have protective gear for our hands. I took a chef's knife, grabbed one end by the handle, held the other end with a towel, and then pressed down on the block of cheese to cut it down. Sometimes the towel slipped off of the knife from the pressure I placed on it and the tip of the knife grazed my arm. It was a matter of time until I would receive a serious cut on my arm.

I did not know how to sharpen my knives like the older guys did. They did not share their knowledge with me. I knew everything. I was young and full of pride. I was not a good listener. I was obnoxious to be honest so the other cooks did not want to help me with safety knowledge. 

One day my owner had to drive me to receive stitches for a cut I had on my hand from a tomato slicer. He was so mad! I still have scars on my fingers, hands, and arms from all of the cuts that I sustained. One of my fingers goes numb once in a while from a poor stitching job that I got in one of the HMOs after I cut myself. Some of my other cuts were treated by the lifeguards since my job was right on the sand.

My injuries directly resulted from my lack of training. Those experiences motivated me to train myself, not to rely on other people for my success or failures. No matter what I did for pay, I realized that it was my responsibility to make sure that I knew everything I could about my job. I even sought to know what other people were supposed to do in order to be more effective in my position. 

This mentality caused me to learn more about training, culminating in a degree in human resources. As I said before, training is a part of my job, but it is not my job title. Anyways, in my studies I picked up the training-related acronym called "ADDIE" which stands for Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation. In this section I will attempt to cover the Analysis stage of ADDIE.

There are many questions to pose when analyzing your safety training. First you must understand your audience, rule number one for any mode or end of communication. Now you need to find out what you are attempting to achieve and by what time you are considering for it to be done. Looking at the performance of your learners is a good place to start improving your safety results. If you work in an office environment, then you are not going to have a shortage of meeting spaces. If you serve customers all day long, then your training times or locations are going to have to be more strategic.

Now you can overview how your training will be given. These days more people than ever are being trained online. Perhaps one day, if it is not already happening, your company can provide downloads to your telephone for your team to absorb. You might use a presentation from your computer, pass out worksheets, or maybe you use index cards. One company I worked for paid for training materials from a fancy consulting firm. 

As for myself, I hated every single minute of school. I loved being a part of UCLA, but going to class was never a favorite activity for me. I am not a fan of sitting in a class and being lectured to. I dislike ice breakers. I want to be anonymous in my learning. Other people like to interact. Still other people prefer to sit in a class so they can get away from their usual distractions. 

You need to understand how you conduct your training sessions and how people learn. This is complicated and takes time to understand. I come from a long line of school teachers, so I hear about the classroom experience all night and all weekend. In my line of work there are individuals from every walk of life, so the safety training we use is reflective of that. Some people like to study on their own time and I give space for any learner to be independent. One challenge that we often run into is that many of our team members have heard the same presentation for years, so you have to find other ways to relate the material.

As you train adults, you will want to appeal to the necessity of explaining the "why" of the material. What is the point? One the best "why" explanations I can give is that when you go home, if you are not hurt then your family does not suffer the consequences of an injury at work. The reverse is also true. Do not take your health for granted, I always say.

I try to build on what the adult learner has mastered instead of retelling them something they already know word for word. I love people who instead of hearing my safety speech would rather tell me their safety knowledge in their own way. In that scenario as the trainer I will act as a mirror. Many experts may say that it would be helpful to include your employees in safety training formulation.  

You need to find out what a person motivates themselves to be interested in the topic, as I highlighted previously. Make the training personal to each learner. Years ago I spent time learning how to write plays and novels in various creative writing programs. The key to pulling people into what you are saying is to make them care. If you answer that question during your analysis of your training program, you are definitely on your way.