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TRAINING SOFTWARE 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, GSP, ASHM 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 require- ments 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 re- main 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 work- day 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 work- place. According to Pew, more than 97 percent of Americans1 own a cell phone. Moreover, one study shows that, on average, Americans spend more than four hours per day2 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 em- ployees will appreciate the chance to complete workplace learn- ing on their personal devices. However, the benefits of mobile training materials extend be- yond personal preferences. Mobile learning helps employees ac- cess 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 employ- ees 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 prob- ability 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. Benefit no. 2: Mobile Materials Offer “Stickier” Learning Opportunities Information tends to be “use it or lose it.” This is a phenom- enon referred to as “the Forgetting Curve3,” which represents the (relatively quick) rate at which people forget information they’ve learned but don’t put it into practice. Another way to think of it is that knowledge is like helium inside a balloon. Once filled, a balloon loses helium — even if just a little bit at a time — until, finally, the balloon fails to float in the air. Likewise, knowledge begins to escape peoples’ memories soon after it’s acquired. When it comes to critical safety information, forgetting infor- mation is a problem. Sticker learning delivery methods like mobile platforms, how- ever, help combat the forgetting curve, empowering employees to break down — or “chunk4” — materials into lessons they can interact with a little bit at a time. The result: consequential EHS materials appear more easily digestible. This helps employees build and maintain a foundation of basic knowledge and makes learning less cumbersome by orga- nizing complex information in manageable parts. Next, let’s look at how microlearning supports “on-demand” training for employees as they work. Benefit no. 3: Mobile Microlearning Supports Training Within Employees’ Workflow Say an employee works on a jobsite in an area that rarely ex- periences winter conditions. Because of the forgetting curve, the nuances of how to handle heavy equipment in snow may be easily forgotten. But work doesn’t stop because of unexpected winter weather. And a jobsite can’t just shut down for a day-long “re- fresher” safety course. Mobile-supported microlearning, however, helps employees reference materials as needed in order to ensure they’re up-to- date and equipped with the information they need to tackle work no matter what comes up. What might these microlearning lessons look like? Think: three-minute knowledge assessments followed by a set of three questions highlighting key information at the end of the train- ing. Each lesson can be refined to refer to a specific topic — from safety concerns as broad as winter weather procedures to guide- lines as specific as when to wear a seatbelt. Then, employees can reference these lessons as needed. 28 Occupational Health & Safety | FEBRUARY/MARCH 2024 www.ohsonline.com