HSE Training: Can It Be Engaging and Dynamic, and What Does It Depend On?

I wrote the headline and paused to think: the words I used seem as far apart as Venus and Jupiter, or Moscow and St. Petersburg. The words "HSE," "dynamic," and "engaging." I invite you to reflect with me: can these be compatible, and what does it depend on most?

The very phrase "mandatory HSE training" somehow reeks of boredom and moralizing, wouldn't you agree? Such are the established stereotypes. And when someone who has to go through it arrives under the influence of this stereotype, they have little motivation to change their attitude toward their own safety. The instructor read the requirements from a presentation, I passed the knowledge check. Here is my signature — now leave me alone for the next three years. What kind of awareness can we talk about? Well, you understand...

I won't be revealing a big secret if I say that a great deal depends on the instructor. There are no uninteresting subjects, only uninteresting teachers.

What does it mean to teach? To help someone discover a subject, to look at it together with students, and to explore it from all sides. Everything depends on the instructor's motivation; you cannot teach someone to be a worthy teacher if there is no internal motivation.

Here are four common traits of a good instructor:

• Sincere love for their subject, a passion for it — nothing in the world is more important or significant!
• The ability to spread this passion to everyone around. Whatever you want to ignite in others must burn within yourself.
• The ability to convey knowledge in simple and clear language. What we have conceptualized and understood stays with us for a long time.
• Supporting students. They and their needs are central to this process.

How do you become a good HSE instructor? The first step on this path is to start caring about ensuring that everyone who has to follow the rules UNDERSTANDS their meaning through training. How can we expect people to comply with requirements they don't know or don't understand?

From this step, we move to the next and begin explaining complex things in simple words, accessible to any target audience. When we do this while showing a keen interest in the subject and the students, such a moment of high influence leaves none of them indifferent.

• Talk to people about them — about their lives and health.
• Be in a "peer-to-peer" position, excluding the superiority of a "guru" instructor.
• Build trust in the learners by showing that your only expectation from the training is for each of them to return home safe and sound.

Three elements of dynamic and engaging training:

One element of good training is the instructor — their energy and passion for the subject.

The second element arises from the first when students become involved in the learning process. This is the motivation to learn. Students are ready to learn and begin to feel a need for knowledge. Essentially, one element (the instructor) provides the impulse to the other (the student).

The third element of dynamic and engaging training is the techniques used by the instructor.

Remember what Confucius once said: Tell me and I forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand.

To this day, no one has come up with a better technique than practice. Practice is a key condition for training. What we do with our hands stays with us for a long time and forms a skill. Therefore, the best technique is to give students the opportunity to practice what you are teaching them. Filling out a work permit, developing an instruction, investigating incidents, asking "five whys," conducting a motivational conversation during a BBS audit, or conducting a briefing using engaging briefing technology. Extinguishing a real fire with an extinguisher, performing CPR on a mannequin, or performing a recovery roll.

Another powerful pedagogical technique, devised by Socrates about 2,500 years ago, is asking questions. This technique is still considered one of the best in the world today. Facilitation is an excellent tool through which you can extract a lot from students and form new neural connections. This includes conceptualizing safety requirements and forming conscious safety.

The third technique is repetition. As the saying goes: repetition is the mother of learning. We now use this technique by organizing training in a "flipped classroom" format. First, participants get acquainted with a document (standard, instruction), then watch a video lecture on the topic, and finally reinforce it through practice during the training. The effect of such triple repetition helps students achieve a maximum level of retention and mastery of the material — up to 90%.

Do not stop searching for your own meaning in teaching, the best techniques, and your own "tricks," invent them yourself, learn from colleagues, experts, and masters of their craft, and develop your love for the subject. And you will be second to none. I wish you success on this difficult but fascinating journey!