Nobody Reads Anymore: Why Mobile Training Is the Key to a Safer Workplace
Mobile training materials help all employees keep critical safety information close at hand and make it easier for employers to maintain a safer workplace.
- By Rachel Hook
- Mar 01, 2024
There’s no substitute for workplace safety training. That’s because effective training programs do more than educate workers about best practices. They help employees stay current on a range of topics from individual job requirements to workplace-wide Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) matters, such as:
• Safety observations that help control overall risk.
• Incident reporting that can help reduce future workplace accidents.
• Management procedures that help ensure employees remain compliant.
• Auditing systems that help assess company-wide health and safety policies.
• Inspections that identify potential hazards and violations.
• Alerts that keep all employees informed about the safety of their workplace.
Still, relying on required training courses delays learning that might be necessary now. And it’s not an efficient use of the workday to have employees read a manual (if they’ll sit down to read it in the first place) or refer to an hours-long, self-guided course.
The solution? Mobile training.
When workplaces provide learning materials employees can access on their own mobile devices, the results are easy to see. Read on to dive deeper into five reasons why mobile training is the key to a safer workplace.
Benefit no. 1: Mobile Training Materials Make Learning Easier to Access
Mobile devices are a nearly omnipresent facet of today’s workplace. According to Pew, more than 97 percent of Americans own a cell phone. Moreover, one study shows that, on average, Americans spend more than four hours per day looking at their devices.
No matter which way you look at it, people navigate more and more of their lives via mobile. So, it stands to reason many employees will appreciate the chance to complete workplace learning on their personal devices.
However, the benefits of mobile training materials extend beyond personal preferences. Mobile learning helps employees access information when they need it, where they need it, which simply makes learning easier to access. And with app-delivered learning materials, employers can be confident that all employees are referencing the same standards and guidelines rather than independently searching for potentially outdated or erroneous information.
When all employees have easy access to EHS materials — even right there in the palms of their hands — it increases the probability that they will complete their required workplace learning programs. Next, let’s look at how mobile training helps employees retain more of the information they learn.
This article originally appeared in the February/March 2024 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.