This is an excerpt from the article “All Hands On Deck” originally published in the Spring 2015 issue of Safety Decisions.

The reason active participation is so effective is because it gets employees to think through things themselves, and in doing so they begin building new habits. People naturally learn by doing, and the entire apprenticeship system in most trades is built on the belief that it requires practice in order to properly hone one’s practical skills and knowledge. Safety is no different, and if we don’t expect electricians to know how to rewire a house solely by sitting in a classroom, then why would we expect anyone to be able to do the same for safety measures?

Hands-on training doesn’t have to mean looking over someone’s shoulder and then correcting them when they make a mistake. It could also include:

• “reverse teaching” by asking an employee to teach you
• a pop quiz on safety procedures
• one-on-one discussions about the need for training
• collectively sharing stories of near-misses or safety successes

One technique I find particularly effective is to ask employees on the shop floor to rate their mental state or skill level. This evaluates not only how well they’re performing, but it also determines if they’re in a mental state (like rushing or complacency) that could cause them to circumvent safety procedures or put them at risk of making an error.

The aim is to elicit a trainee’s active participation in their own learning. By asking questions, their brains are forced to think through the problem and provide an answer—making them much more likely to remember it in the future.

You’ll notice that many of these “hands-on” techniques don’t actually require you to be on the shop floor. The goal is to engage employees and not necessarily just observe them performing a task—you can use these methods in small groups or even incorporate them in classroom training.

You also have the opportunity to drastically shorten the feedback loop on incorrect behavior by immediately addressing any concerns rather than waiting until you observe it during the course of an employee’s work. And you can assess the extent to which an employee has learned the lesson in the first place and apply more pressure on topics that haven’t quite sunk in.

Read the full version of “All Hands On Deck” here.