Health and safety training…again…really?

Health and safety trainers often ask me how they can get the team to buy-in to training when they have heard it all before.

The trick is to get them engaged early. Start with a competitive quiz.

Using a health and safety quiz

Divide the group into teams and ask them 10 – 15 health and safety questions. Even though they have had the training before they will have forgotten some things so running a competitive quiz will show them that they still need to refresh their skills. It also adds energy and fun to the session.

Choose your questions carefully.

There's a balance. If you make the questions too difficult they'll think they've been set up. Too easy and you'll reinforce their belief that they know all they need to know already.

You have a chance to score two points for each question

I use a two-point marking system for keeping score. It works really well because it increases competition and moves things along.

Tell the teams they will have two chances to score points. They are competing for the ‘speed’ point and the ‘accuracy’ point. The first team to write their answer on a post-it and slap it on the wall wins the speed point (even if the answer is wrong). We don’t check the answer until all the questions have been asked and all the speed points have been awarded.

Re-visit the questions and award the accuracy points for the correct answers – feel free to add bonus points for outstanding or added-value answers. The added points can change the whole game, which makes it lots of fun.

Rewarding the winning team

Remember to award the winning team prizes – chocolate usually works well. I am constantly amazed at how vigorously adults will compete for chocolate.

If you start your session with a quiz you will get engagement faster, your team will revisit safety ideas without being bored and they often learn more from the informal discussion around the correct answers.

Give it a try. What have you got to lose?