Training your workforce to improve your COVID-19 response

As the impact of the global pandemic becomes apparent within each business, many are now recognizing that training on health and safety standards is just as important as compliance. COVID-19 may be a temporary disruption, but it’s shaken up the world, and many of the standards being adopted right now will continue to exist in the years to come.

We take a look at how integrating learning with digital checklists can have a positive impact on the safety standards of your business and encourage operational efficiency.

Digital education helps to reinforce safety standards

In a large, distributed workforce, multiple inspections and checks can leave some room for error.

One branch could be cleaning their touchpoints every hour, while another is cleaning them a few times a day.

Each worker checks ‘complete’ on the sanitization checklist, but is every employee fully educated correctly on current business hygiene and safety standards?

Many organizations have struggled to adequately implement COVID-19 training, or they are only just starting to upskill their workforce to be more prepared for the future. 

Over half of UK school staff say they haven’t had any health and safety training, causing concern for current safety standards.

The public healthcare sector has seen an increase in online learning, with 76% of healthcare and 82% of public safety respondents experiencing major or moderate shifts toward online training.

As areas of business reopen after lockdowns, or businesses go back into mandated shutdowns, some organizations are starting to upskill their staff during periods of downtime.

Digital education can be a helpful complement to safety checklists, and it will support your staff in becoming compliant as we continue to manage multiple waves of COVID-19. Checklist items will adhere to official guidance, and online modules can help drive high performance and adoption of safety standards.

Improving COVID-19 response times

Critical to any business right now is speed. Every business is asking ‘how fast can we respond?’

With a whole workforce upskilled in safety education, training and safety protocols can go hand in hand with evolving COVID-19 guidance.

Digital, on-the-spot guidance can assist staff towards increasing their health and safety knowledge. They can consult training modules if they have a query, therefore helping to mitigate the risk of a lapse in judgement.

In the event of a crisis, your employees can feel safe, knowing they have expert training at the touch of a button, with the ability to modify and change their checklists to respond to the current situation.

Train your staff on the go

Training your staff quickly and efficiently has never been more important. With all of these extra layers of health and safety compliance now required, staff may get overwhelmed and miss important steps, meaning your business is potentially more at risk of transmission.

By conducting training alongside inspection processes, staff are much more likely to stay compliant on new measures. 

That’s why we’re extremely pleased to announce that SafetyCulture has recently teamed up with mobile learning management system EdApp, which allows for organizational training material to be made digital.

EdApp has a wealth of features that make it suitable for organizations of any size, including

• Rapid authoring: Learn the basics of a subject in just twenty minutes
• Editable course library: Store lots of information including videos, documents and more
• Built for mobile: Get knowledge on the go – a hygienic way to learn 

When integrating your online training with existing checklist standards, it’s helpful to know how the two can work together.

iAuditor and EdApp can be used in a variety of health and safety scenarios:

• Hotels can design micro-lessons that focus on key areas such as presentation, quality, and service standards. This can then be integrated with iAuditor checklists on sanitization and social distancing measures.
• Warehouses can create micro-lessons that team members can access anytime to refresh their safe working knowledge. This can be integrated with iAuditor’s health and safety checklists, meaning employees can refresh their knowledge at the touch of a button
• Retail staff can incorporate product micro-lessons with checklists on store hygiene and cleaning protocols, meaning workers can continually be upskilled as they respond to new guidance.

Try our FREE range of customizable COVID-19 templates based on official guidance: COVID-19 response hub

Want to learn more about Ed App?  Learn more about EdApp and how it works with iAuditor

Important Notice
The information contained in this article is general in nature and you should consider whether the information is appropriate to your specific needs. Legal and other matters referred to in this article are based on our interpretation of laws existing at the time and should not be relied on in place of professional advice. We are not responsible for the content of any site owned by a third party that may be linked to this article. SafetyCulture disclaims all liability (except for any liability which by law cannot be excluded) for any error, inaccuracy, or omission from the information contained in this article, any site linked to this article, and any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.