Online Safety Training: How Quality Programs Can Inspire EHS Success

Environment, health, and safety (EHS) managers recognize how critical workplace safety training is to EHS success — but for many, creating and maintaining a quality training program remains a top challenge. Online safety training in particular is an often misunderstood (and sometimes altogether overlooked) opportunity to boost EHS training engagement and retention.

While COVID-19 introduced a new era of remote learning (also known as eLearning), some EHS professionals may still be unsure as to how, or why, they should use this trend to their organization’s advantage. A few compliance limitations aside, properly implemented online safety training can have an immensely positive impact on your EHS programs, goals, and initiatives.

Complementing Hands-On Training

Before beginning to build your online safety training program, it’s important to note that regulatory agencies have made it clear that online training is meant to supplement, not replace, hands-on training. EHS training tied to specific OSHA standards may also carry certain in-person requirements depending on the job. Beware of any system that assures complete regulatory compliance through an entirely online safety training program, and be especially wary if such claims come from a program that isn’t even tailored to the specific needs of your company or industry.

This is not to say that online training should be avoided or distrusted. It merely highlights the importance of working with a trusted partner, one deeply immersed in the nuances of the EHS regulatory landscape, to develop an online safety training program that will maximize the benefits for your employees and organization.

How Online Safety Training Can Help

With a quality program in place, the benefits of online safety training are numerous. Here are three specific advantages that can help you take your EHS training program in a new, modern direction.

1. Increase Your Productivity

While training is absolutely a cornerstone of your EHS culture, it is also one of many competing priorities. This is especially true in companies and industries with significant workplace safety risks that require constant vigilance on the part of EHS managers. Therefore, any training tool that can save time without sacrificing quality is of great value. Online safety training can help increase productivity in the following ways:

• Reduce your time spent “behind the scenes” of training. Actual delivery of safety training is only the tip of the iceberg. EHS professionals also need to create training schedules, track progress, and continually follow up to ensure new employees receive safety training during onboarding and existing employees get refresher training as required. Quality online training programs incorporate comprehensive dashboards that give managers on-demand access to this data, offering quick visibility and easily digestible insights into the state of EHS training companywide.
• Ensure consistent, quality content. Online courses save EHS managers the time of having to develop safety training content from scratch. Plus, with a centralized learning management system (LMS), managers can rest assured that all workers are receiving uniform training across all roles as well as the proper job-specific training when necessary.
• Integrate training with your EHS metrics analysis. Online systems can track employee EHS training participation—a key leading indicator that should be a part of any EHS metrics analysis. The right eLearning program can provide managers with another statistical tool that can point to successes (and potential shortcomings) within the organization’s health and safety programs.

2. Reduce Your Costs

It’s only natural that the increased productivity described above will be good for your organization’s bottom line. But there are many other ways online safety training can help save money.

• Provide on-demand training without the on-demand price. On-demand training allows employees to complete requirements at their own pace, without the need to schedule multiple in-person sessions to reach everyone. Employees can access safety courses from any device and any location, cutting down on the scheduling overhead that comes with traditional classroom training.
• Better records provide better evidence of compliance, helping you avoid citations and fines. If you are unable to prove that employees have received required compliance training, it can result in steep fines if you are inspected or audited by a regulatory agency. Online programs work in conjunction with an LMS to keep detailed records, complete with completion dates and certificates, available any time you (or OSHA or the EPA) need them.
• Proper training means fewer injuries, which means fewer costs. These costs extend far beyond just the financial ones such as lost time and workers’ compensation. The human toll of on-the-job injuries is very high, and EHS training is critical to mitigating these costs.

3. Improve Employee Morale

Despite its importance, training can often feel like a drag for employees — something that is often boring and disrupts the work day. Online safety training can help provide a more engaging and accessible experience for employees, which results in more active participation as well as a reduction in incidents. When creating a safety eLearning program, ensure that you consider the following to help boost morale:

• Prioritize interactivity. Employees will retain more knowledge with an interactive format rather than one that simply presents information. Include quizzes, instructional videos, and safety observation exercises in your program.
• Incorporate opportunities for employees to give feedback. Your training program should give employees a voice, so that they can be heard and get a chance to shape and perhaps improve training programs.
• Always highlight the “why” of safety training. When employees clearly understand how the training will help them do a better job as well as stay safe, they will be more invested in their own participation. Then they will bring a safety-oriented mindset with them when they return to their daily tasks and responsibilities.

What Sets Quality Online Courses Apart

Not all online courses are created equal. Plenty of programs are little more than a slideshow read aloud on camera, with no real connection to the standards your company is actually required to follow. The best safety courses are professionally produced, instructionally designed, and mapped directly to current EHS regulations, so what employees learn is what an inspector will actually expect them to know.

• Professionally Produced, Standards-Aligned Safety Courses
  Quality online courses are scripted and produced by EHS regulatory experts, not generic instructional designers, and updated whenever OSHA, EPA, or DOT standards change. That matters because a course library that goes stale doesn’t just bore employees, it puts your regulatory compliance at risk during an audit. Look for programs built around instructional videos, scenario-based quizzes, and content employees can work through at their own pace, so training fits around shift schedules rather than the other way around. If you don’t already have an LMS to house that content, an integrated one saves the extra step of managing a separate system.
• General Industry and Industry-Specific Online Training
  Online training should also match the work being done. General industry courses cover the baseline hazards nearly every workforce faces — things like hazard communication, PPE, and emergency action plans — while industry-specific courses address the unique risks of construction, laboratories, manufacturing, and other specialized environments. A strong course library offers both, so supervisors can assign the right training to the right role instead of relying on one-size-fits-all content. For a closer look at how tailoring training to the job improves outcomes, see the impact of customized training programs on frontline workers.

Common OSHA Training Requirements for General Industry

OSHA training requirements span dozens of standards, but a handful come up across nearly every general industry workplace. Here are some of the most popular courses organizations assign to stay compliant:

This is only a sample. Dakota’s library of more than 170 courses covers general industry and industry-specific training needs alike, along with Human Resources and workplace safety topics that fall outside OSHA’s scope entirely.

A Trusted Partner for Safety Professionals

For safety professionals balancing compliance deadlines with day-to-day incident prevention, a trusted training partner makes the difference between checking a box and building real capability across the workforce.

21st-Century Training for a 21st-Century Workforce

EHS must adapt with the rest of its organizational counterparts to meet the demands of the 21st century, using every available tool to do so. Safety eLearning can be a valuable tool to help you deliver engaging, effective training that will boost productivity, cost savings, and morale, all while driving the higher goals of your organizational EHS program.

Interested in adding online safety training to your EHS program? Dakota Software is here to help. We offer more than 170 professionally produced online safety and compliance courses in three innovative formats: Interactive, adaptive, and micro-learning. Our regulatory and industry experts make sure this content is accurate, engaging, and always up-to-date.

Check out our full course library or request a quote to get started.