Tag: Site Safety Brief

The Digital Depot II

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internal depot

A few months back we blogged about the headway we, as well as the likes of Zonegreen and Alcumus Sypol, are making in the area of digitising the train depot… Our online worksite safety induction solution Site Sentinel allows depot visitors to complete an induction before they arrive on site, meaning they arrive equipped and ready for work.  What better way to optimise the digital technology available to us?

However, what if visitors first language isn’t English?  To date, we’ve always run Site Sentinel in English, however, more and more site visitors need the worksite induction in their native language to ensure safety critical details are not ‘lost in translation’.

This development is unsurprising, the range of skills required in a train depot is vast… there are train engineers, construction workers, electricians, safety managers and administrative staff, not to mention a whole heap of specialist rail contractors and visitors who enter the depot each day.  We can’t expect each one of these people to have a high standard of English literacy – but neither can we afford for them to misunderstand or misinterpret the safety induction briefing.

So, what do we do?  Well if you decide to translate your induction, you’ll need technical language support and a good deal of technical proofreading.  Google Translate – albeit a great way to quickly and cheaply translate big pieces of text – won’t suffice – it could lead to unintelligible or, worse still, misleading statements.  The devil is in the detail and technical accuracy is key.

Once you’ve had the site induction translated, a little user testing wouldn’t go amiss either… the text may make sense to you, but it needs to be trialled with different people to ensure the testing is sufficiently robust.

But… once this is all in place, there’s no reason why Site Sentinel can’t be rolled out in a whole variety of different languages.  You could even give people the choice to read it in more than one language – just for good measure!

Have you translated safety materials into different languages?  What challenges have you faced?

Record number of Site Sentinel online worksite safety inductions for 2019!

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We’re excited to announce we’ve beaten last year’s safety induction record – delivering almost 24,000 online worksite safety inductions across 20 separate sites for six different rail industry clients.  One of the sites executed an astonishing 5,000 worksite safety inductions using our Site Sentinel online platform – an incredible figure for just one year!

These numbers show a 20% increase compared with last year’s – where we successfully delivered just over 20,000 online inductions.

Founder of Lucid Communications, Paul Townsend said “We’re thrilled with the high number of inductions completed this year… we’ve surpassed our own expectations and it demonstrates how the rail industry really is starting to appreciate the power of digitising the induction process.  What a fantastic start to 2020.”

The SiteSentinel platform provides an online induction, test and administration interface.  The system is designed to consistently deliver relevant, up to date, high quality information using text, photos, video and illustrations.

SiteSentinel ensures an easily accessible audit trail of worksite safety inductions for all staff, visitors and contractors.

Brief Before They Get To Site, Not Once They’ve Arrived

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There’s an old adage in training: “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you’ve told them.”

Sound a little odd?  Well there’s a sound educational basis for the one-liner – most of us need time to assimilate new knowledge and getting to grips with new concepts requires time.  There is only a certain amount of information that our working memory can absorb in any one training session – in psychology circles this is known as the “cognitive load” – the limited mental capacity that we have for processing new material.

So, why do companies still insist on waiting for contractors to turn up to their worksite, ‘hosepipe’ information at them, walk them around unfamiliar surroundings pointing at things, and then let them loose on site, expecting they’ve fully comprehended everything that’s been said?

The best approach to site induction is to deliver detailed information BEFORE visitors arrive on site, using text, photos, diagrams etc.  Of particular importance is the provision of a site schematic – an overview of the ‘shape’ of the site.  People new to the site will need this to make sense of any site walk-around.  They need a context into which they can place the physical experience of a site visit.

There is also certain information that visitors and contractors might need beforehand, such as: Where is the site?  Which entrance should I use?  How do I get in?  What are the relevant telephone numbers?  What equipment should I bring?  Etc.

Lastly, think of visitors and contractors from outside of high hazard industries like rail.  For example, are they aware of the strict ultra-low alcohol level required by the rail industry?  Would you really expect a contractor, upon arriving at site and being told of the level, to throw their hand in the air and say, “Oops, sorry, I went out drinking last night – I can’t come on site…”  Highly unlikely!

So, we suggest the best worksite induction looks something like this:

  • Step 1 – Online briefing and test before arrival;
  • Step 2 – Quick verbal test and correction of any incorrect test results;
  • Step 3 – Site walk-around to reinforce and embed information.

What are your experiences?

Assisted Delivery: Guidance On Implementation

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In our last blog we discussed the advantages of Assisted Delivery as a training format that ‘self-delivers’ in the same way as E-learning – but is structured in a way that allows a facilitator to dip in and get involved, either leading on particular topics or convening group interactions to encourage social learning and deeply embed new knowledge.

So, what are our top tips for successfully implementing Assisted Delivery?

1. Choose your facilitators wisely

As with traditional face-to-face training, the skills and experience of the trainer is key. However, unlike traditional training, leading Assisted Delivery training does not necessarily require subject specific knowledge.  Instead, the person running the course requires facilitation skills rather than subject matter expertise.  Therefore, a strong team leader or line manager with basic presentation and facilitation skills could comfortably deliver an Assisted Delivery course.  The course materials themselves will cover the subject specifics in depth, with the facilitator’s role being to guide the trainees in their group discussions, enabling them to benefit from social interaction within a learning group.

2. Carefully structure the course

To allow facilitators to get an ‘aerial view’ of the course and understand where the opportunities for class discussions are stored, Assisted Delivery works best with a tightly controlled course structure and content.  Be clear on the topics you want to cover, at what point in the programme you want to cover them, and where trainees might pause for group discussion.

We recently used Assisted Delivery for an international sales programme.  A particular aim of the programme was the implementation of a globally-consistent approach to sales.  However, it was recognised that some practices must be attenuated for specific markets and local cultures.  Assisted Delivery allowed the sales managers to apply local emphasis at particular points in the course whilst also ensuring that the core content was delivered in an accurate and timely manner.

3. Support your facilitators

Although one of the key benefits of Assisted Delivery is that your trainers do not need in-depth subject specific knowledge; they still need support.  Developing and providing detailed delivery notes for facilitators is therefore crucial to success.  Furthermore, peer support outside of the classroom can also provide a much-needed chance to ask questions and refine the approach.  For one project we found setting up a discussion forum for the facilitators was useful.  They actively used it for sharing experiences and FAQs.

4. Encourage feedback from trainees

OK, so we’re not advising anything revolutionary here…but we are highly recommending you seek feedback from training delegates to see what they thought of the Assisted Delivery training: Did everything link together well?; Was the overall structure easy to follow?; Did you benefit from group interaction?; What would be useful next time?

SiteSentinel for Arriva

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SiteSentinel for Arriva

Arriva Rail London have implemented SiteSentinel at their Chingford depot.

Arriva Rail London, part of the Arriva Group, operate the London Overground network on behalf of Transport for London. The network operates 1473 services using 96 trains on six routes.

The SiteSentinel platform provides an online induction, test and administration interface. The system is designed to consistently deliver relevant, high-quality information using text, photos, video and illustrations. SiteSentinel provides an audit trail of site inductions for staff, visitors, and contractors.