Health and safety courses

Topics surrounding health and safety are often overlooked, and not many take the time to take control of their well-being, especially in the workplace.

We offer a total of 14 courses, and while some are geared specifically towards individuals working in specific industries (the food industry or the medical industry, for example), others cover broader ideas like stress in the workplace, first aid, and basic life support. Our selection of health and safety courses can offer essential training for those hoping to gain a better understanding of what’s needed to feel happy, healthy, secure and comfortable in emergency situations at work.

We offer a variety of Food Safety and Hygiene courses for those preparing to work within the food industry, and refresher courses for those already working regularly with food. Whether working in a restaurant, hotel, cafe, bar or running a catering business of your own, your first order of business should be to understand how to handle food properly.

While this might sound simple, there’s a lot of ground to cover when it comes to food prep. In order to become a trusted source for your customers, our e-training courses will provide you with the right knowledge to start your (or continue) your career on the right path.

With a selection of five courses (Food Safety & Hygiene Essentials, Food Safety and Hygiene Level 2, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, Food Allergy Awareness, and Fluids and Nutrition – for Health and Social Care), you’ll be able to cover all the bases needed to succeed within the food industry, including food prep, food safety, food hygiene and food allergies.

For those working as part of a health and social care team, we recommend taking a look at some of our more specific courses within this category to make sure you’re doing everything you can to be an exceptional member of staff and take care of your patients as best you can.

Our Infection Prevention and Control course is a three module course in which you’ll learn what causes illness and what you can do to minimise the risk of infections, focusing specifically on effective hand hygiene, the use of Personal Protective Equipment and how to safely handle infection or soiled linen and clinical waste. If you’re working with adults who may be ill or particularly vulnerable to infections, this course will teach you how to be vigilant in preventing the spread of an illness.

Another course that will be of interest to healthcare and social care professionals is our Medication Awareness and Safe Handling of Medicines course. Many rely on their medication on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and it’s a crucial part of their health and wellbeing, so it’s important to have an understanding of how to manage this process. Whether you’re a carer in domiciliary settings, in a care home, or a manager of care providers – this course will be important for you to take on. Family members who want to understand more about the safe handling on medication for those they’re taking care of will also find good value in this course.

Regardless of what industry you’re currently working in (and the day-to-day responsibilities that come with it), we think there’s great value in getting some basic health and safety training under your belt. In addition to the courses mentioned above, we also provide basic training to ensure you’ll be able to step up at work in an emergency situation, if need be.

With courses like Basic Life Support, First Aid, Medication Awareness and Safe Handling of Medicines and Fire Safety Awareness, you’ll reach a heightened sense of security and also be given the tools needed to help others with their health and safety with confidence.

Occupational Health and Safety Training in the Digital Age

When the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) went into effect in 1971, workplace training was one of its mandates. Employers were required to provide safety training to their workers in a language and vocabulary they could understand. Within a year, the newly created regulatory agency opened the OSHA Training Institute to provide training materials, grants and classes – and so, an industry was born.

Traditionally, OSHA training involved herding employees into a classroom with a lecturer and using a chalkboard, overhead projector or PowerPoint presentation (as the decades progressed) to provide a visual.

In the early 2000s, the maturation of the internet allowed all kinds of businesses to adopt online training (e-learning) technology for skills development and regulatory compliance – and OSHA training jumped onto the internet in 2001. The industry has only grown as advances in network coverage and mobile devices have made training accessible anywhere, anytime.

Traditional OSHA training still makes up a bulk of class time for the workforce, but it’s important for businesses to understand the benefits and limitations of online training so that they can decide which training vehicle is best for them.

Benefits of Online Safety Training for Learners

The flexible and customizable nature of e-learning can make safety training more accessible to all kinds of learners.

The flexible and customizable nature of e-learning can make safety training more accessible to all kinds of learners. Online training offers:

Flexible, Self-paced Scheduling

According to LinkedIn’s 2018 workplace learning report, 58% of employees prefer to learn at their own pace. In a classroom, speedy learners can be bored, while slower learners struggle in silence. Even better, with online training, there’s no need to find a single, “least inconvenient time” for the entire workforce. Workers can take courses around their own production schedules or shifts.

Online training also accommodates varying attention spans and allows learners to take a break whenever they need. They can work on modules over multiple sessions and, better yet, put break time to good use.

Learning Preference Accommodation

There are few people whose favorite way to learn is sitting still for hours while a person reads complex information, but that’s the reality of most classroom training.

Online training coordinates a variety of mediums. Courses combine text, narration, illustration, animation, video demonstrations and interactive simulations. This approach covers the preferences of most learners.

Online training also addresses literacy and language barriers. Audio narration of text is standard in courses, and Spanish or other language versions are often available.

Relevance via Tailored Content

Classroom training almost always requires generalized content. Maximizing the employee-to-trainer ratio is better for costs, but inevitably, workers have to sit through training that isn’t directly applicable to their roles.

With e-learning, course designers can break material into discreet and specific modules. Employers assign the right combination to each employee, and then everything the employee reviews is directly relevant to his or her experience, skill set, responsibilities and job context. Employers can also deploy training “just in time” for the job at hand. LinkedIn found that 49% of employees prefer to learn at their point of need. It’s no wonder – just-in-time learning leads to better retention.

Benefits of Online Training to Businesses

For businesses, quality e-learning offers efficiency and effectiveness in the form of:

Consistency

Classroom training puts employees at the mercy of an instructor’s teaching skill and style, while online training provides a guarantee that every course covers the same information in the same way for the same results. Every learner will learn the same topics, with no unauthorized opinions.

Online training also allows for a caliber of expertise that you might not be able to find (or afford) in personal instructors. The one-time “delivery” (design) of the coursework can be shaped by experts in both the subject matter and adult learning optimization. That combination can be powerful, and it’s rare to find it in an always-available trainer.

Improved Retention

According to the Research Institute of America, online training has retention rates of 25 to 60% compared to classroom training’s 8 to 10%. Many factors contribute to higher retention, including the ability to self-pace, the multimodal opportunities and tailored content. Flexible scheduling allows learners to take online courses when they are well-rested and lacking distractions, which is more effective than cramming them into a classroom when they’re exhausted after a shift.

Ease and Timeliness of Updating Material

Since online coursework can be updated rapidly and distributed individually, employees can receive swift updates on new regulations or procedures. Employers can update the full training module for future trainees but also create update-only modules for employees who recently finished the training. They don’t have to risk operating a crew under outdated information while they wait for an in-person training.

Trackability and Accountability

When courses are delivered through a robust learning management system (LMS), employers can track training more granularly at both the individual and the organizational levels. With classroom training, employers may only have documentation of completion or non-completion. With a good LMS, they can track individual progress and access the data at the team, department or company level to analyze the effectiveness of the training. For example, did key performance indicators (KPIs) for safety improve after a training program was implemented or changed? Tracking metrics allows for improved training design and better safety decisions.

Tracking metrics allows for improved training design and better safety decisions.

How to Leverage Online Training Effectively

There are three steps you can take to leverage the benefits of e-learning while mitigating its weaknesses.

Choose Quality

Select courses that provide tailored and interactive content. They should be engaging and offer visual, auditory and cognitive learning opportunities. Instead of true/false or multiple-choice questions that encourage regurgitation, courses should include exercises that allow students to apply what they’ve learned to hypothetical real-world scenarios.

Offer Structure

The flexibility and technology involved in online training can be challenging for some employees. Depending on the composition of your workforce, some learners may be nervous or intimidated. They might benefit from the option of taking training at set times on company computers. Have someone on hand to troubleshoot technology issues and provide support. Even employees who are eager to complete their training on their own devices may need you to carve out time for them to do so.

Finish with Hands-on Practice

For safety training, there’s no substitute for hands-on practice, and supplementing some topics with a “lab hour” is invaluable. Employees should be able to demonstrate competency in front of a well-trained superior, for the safety of everyone involved. The lab should include instrument reading, the use of personal protective equipment and other critical hands-on tasks that workers need to experience to be adequately prepared.