Training Approaches for Different Target Audiences: What Key Attitudes and Skills Need to Be Developed?

The HSE training system and its principles have recently undergone significant changes. We all strive to make training individualized. This leads to competency matrices, a variety of programs, educational tracks, and so on. It is impossible to use a one-size-fits-all approach for different target audiences in a standard format, such as a 40-hour program. Should a locksmith be taught what a surgeon needs, and vice versa?

Before developing training programs, it is necessary to determine: whom we are teaching and what we are teaching them. Then, the "how to teach" will emerge, based on the safety attitudes and skills that we define as necessary and specific for each target audience.

For example, a company has three main categories of personnel subject to HSE training: TOP managers, line managers, and workers. Depending on the target audience, it is necessary to understand what we can develop in each of them — what knowledge, skills, and beliefs. I offer an example of defining the core safety value attitudes for three target audience categories: TOP managers, department heads or line managers, and workers.

TOP Managers:

Key attitudes to be developed during the training process:

• The TOP manager is a key link in the leadership hierarchy for influencing the development of safety culture
• I am a role model in the field of safety
• Safety takes precedence over business results/efficiency

Key skills to be developed:

• Leading by example
• Leadership and commitment to safety
• Communicating the value of life and health when making decisions and promoting standards

Line Managers:

Key attitudes to be developed during the training process:

• Safety takes precedence over efficiency
• I am responsible for my own health, for my subordinates, and for everything that happens in my assigned area
• I can influence my subordinates by working to prevent violations and errors

Key skills to be developed:

• Using HSE management tools in daily work
• Mindfulness in safety matters
• Being a role model through personal example
• Intervening in dangerous situations
• Building awareness and responsibility among subordinates
• Ability to act as a responsible leader in emergency situations

Workers/Production Personnel:

Key attitudes to be developed during the training process:

• I am responsible for my own life and health
• Systemic actions in the moment determine long-term results
• Safety first
• Any job can be performed safely without compromising efficiency

Key skills to be developed:

• Skills for performing work safely without errors or violations
• Emergency response skills

You can independently determine the set of attitudes and skills you wish to develop in the aforementioned categories of personnel/target audiences, based on the level of safety culture and the values defined as core in your company. You can then build your own training system based on this set of attitudes and skills.