Aim: Compared to other types of occupational training, safety training suffers from several unique challenges that potentially impair the engagement of learners and their subsequent application or “transfer” of knowledge and skills upon returning to the job. However, existing research on safety training tends to focus on specific factors in isolation, such as design features and social support. The aim of this research is to develop an overarching theoretical framework that integrates factors contributing to training engagement and transfer. Method: We conducted a comprehensive qualitative review of safety training research that was published between 2010 and 2020). We searched Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar, yielding 147 articles, and 38 were included. We content analyzed article summaries to arrive at core themes and combined them with contemporary models of general occupational training to develop a rich model of safety training engagement and transfer. Results: Organizations should prioritize pre training readiness modules to address existing attitudes and beliefs, optimize the safety training transfer climate, and critically reflect on their strategy to design and deliver safety training so that engagement is maximized. Conclusions: There are practical factors that organizations can use before training (e.g., tailoring training to employees’ characteristics), during training (e.g., ensuring trainer credibility and use of adult learning principles), and after training (e.g., integrating learned concepts into systems). Practical Applications: For safety training to ‘stick’, workers should be affectively, cognitively, and behaviorally engaged in the learning, which will result in new knowledge and skills, improvements in attitudes, and new safety behaviors in the workplace. To enable engagement, practitioners must apply adult learning principles, make the training relevant, and tailor the training to the job and individual needs. After training, ensure concepts are embedded and aligned with existing systems and routines to promote transfer.
Dr Tristan Casey is an expert in safety leadership and organisational culture. With a career in workplace health and safety spanning 12 years, he has consulted nationally and internationally across a diverse range of industries such as law enforcement, local government, utilities (water and power, including renewables), offshore oil and gas, construction, and manufacturing (wood and metals). Dr Casey is an endorsed Organisational Psychologist with two doctoral degrees, including his PhD that involved development and validation of the LEAD model under the mentorship of Prof Mark Griffin. His passion is translating abstract/theoretical concepts into practical tools that have measurable impact. Dr Casey is skilled at forming collaborative and mutually beneficial partnerships between government, industry, and academia. He is also a highly regarded international speaker, having keynoted at more than 15 industry events and presented at over 100 conferences, workshops and forums.
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