eLearning is a valuable tool in workplace safety. This should be an essential topic in onboarding all new hires. Your LMS can assist by ensuring that every employee can access safety courses. It can also provide access to related training materials for later reference.
Why is safety at work so important? It affects many aspects of your business. A safe workplace will have fewer injuries and illnesses. That means employees are less likely to miss work and more likely to be productive.
Protecting employees’ physical wellbeing is important, but so is their mental wellness. Psychological safety should be included in your safety training program.
Psychological safety means that employees feel comfortable at work. They can be themselves and focus on their job responsibilities without mental pressure. They do not feel fear when mistakes happen and know that they can discuss ideas, concerns, or questions without repercussions.
Psychological safety is important for mental health. It also encourages employees to contribute in meaningful ways and can lead to innovative and creative ideas. When employees feel safe being open and sharing their thoughts, they can come up with new and better ways to achieve business goals.
A good learning management system will give you the tools needed to use eLearning to train safety in the workplace. Read online LMS reviews to see what’s available to your business.
Teaching General Safety with Your LMS
General safety training should be one of the first courses new hires take when they join your team. This refers to the basic things everyone should do to protect themselves and others from harm.
It may also be essential to maintain compliance. If your business is required to adhere to regulations, make sure these topics are included in your safety training curriculum.
Also find out how to make your online employee training more interactive. The more engaged learners are, the more information they will retain.
- Keep the Information Updated and Relevant
Safety methods may change as technology advances or your business evolves. Make sure your employee safety training course contains the most recent relevant information.
This used to be a difficult task because all materials and courses had to be manually edited. Old materials had to be thrown away and replaced with new hard copies. Your LMS streamlines this process with far less paper waste.
With an LMS, you can edit the course files online and instantly distribute the new version. You won’t have to throw away old manuals and documents since everything is digital. And all trainers and employees will have access to the new version the moment it’s published.
Keeping the information as up to date as possible will ensure that everyone has access to the correct safety guidelines.
- Break Safety Topics into Microlearning
Microlearning is on the rise, and for a good reason. More than 60% of all eLearning content is microlearning in 2025. This method has grown in popularity thanks to its versatility and effectiveness.
No one remembers everything they are taught the first time through. Studies have shown that microlearning produces about 17% more knowledge retention compared to traditional classroom learning.
This is because it presents bite size bits of information in a memorable way. The learner focuses on one topic or a part of a topic, which makes it easier to remember what was taught. A microlearning session usually takes minutes to complete, making it flexible with busy schedules.
Microlearning can be used to create a variety of training topics that can be used in different courses as needed. This method works well for safety training, where knowledge retention is necessary to ensure safety and security for everyone.
- Set Training Goals and Share Them
Set training goals and share them with trainees. Give your training classes a broader goal, like learning how to safely conduct themselves on the job. It may also involve successful completion of compliance.
Each course should also have a smaller goal associated with it. This should describe what the trainee should learn during the course. Going in with this information will help them understand what they are learning and why they are learning it.
You can also set team goals related to safety training. For example, a goal could involve reducing the number of workplace accidents that occur throughout the year using better education.
- Give Trainees Access to a Trainer or Mentor
eLearning often works best with access to a trainer or mentor. This is someone who can provide clarification or answer specific questions. Make sure each trainee knows who to go to when they have concerns or are confused about a topic.
Even if the material covers basic safety that isn’t complicated, it can help to have someone to go to with questions.
Your LMS can facilitate this with email and chat systems. Some also include a built-in social network that makes it easy to connect with other employees, regardless of schedule or location.
- Connect Courses with Related Resources
Make sure each course includes a list of training resources that can be referenced during and after training.
This includes documentation, images, charts, audio files, or links to webinars and websites.
Being able to access a resource list after training will ensure that each employee always has access to the information when they need it. Most LMS platforms include a built-in knowledgebase or repository for resources that can be made available to everyone or select groups within your organization.
- Include Assessments and Quizzes to Monitor Progress
Include assessments and quizzes to ensure that employees understand safety topics and that they retained the essential information.
You can award certificates of completion to recognize success. Many LMSs include certificate features that let businesses create a custom branded certificate that can be downloaded or printed. They can also track dates and scores for compliance.
Assessments help you evaluate your training material. If a course consistently gets poor assessment results, then chances are the course needs to be reworked to be effective.
Teaching Psychological Safety with Your LMS
Psychological safety is important for different reasons. When a team feels psychologically safe, they are more likely to share ideas and take reasonable risks that could lead to big rewards. They are also less likely to suffer from job-related mental health issues.
If you are building your safety training program, it’s a good time to learn how to refine your eLearning course creation workflow. By having a solid system in place, you can produce effective physical and psychological safety training courses quicker.
- Include an Introduction to Psychological Safety
Psychological safety isn’t a new topic, but it is one that is often misunderstood. When a workplace is psychologically safe, that doesn’t mean that everyone will always agree and that every idea will be implemented.
What it means is that every idea will be considered and employees are treated with respect. It also means that employees can speak up with questions or ideas and not fear humiliation or punishment.
Start your training course with an introduction to psychological safety. It can help to use the Edmonson Psychological Safety Scale, which asks seven questions to measure team-level safety.
- Encourage Open, Honest Communication
Open and honest communication should be encouraged. This can be a challenge at first because many people protect themselves by not speaking up. The idea is that if you don’t say anything, then you aren’t going to put yourself at risk of embarrassment, criticism, or job loss.
An employee who feels comfortable is more likely to share their ideas and opinions, which can lead to individual and organizational growth.
If your team struggles with open communication, start by actively seeking employee feedback and participation. Over time, this will become a more natural process, and your team will start to share on their own or build off each other’s ideas.
- Nurture a Supportive Team from Top to Bottom
Employees often look to those higher up in the company for support. However, it’s best to nurture a supportive environment at all levels. That means employees will help one another whether they are below or above them in the hierarchy.
A supportive team will recognize each other’s contributions and achievements. It will allow employees to rely on one another for help when needed. It contributes to the sharing of ideas and leads to greater success as a business.
Physical and psychological safety are very important topics that should be included in your onboarding process. Give your team members the tools they need to thrive, starting with the basics.
