How do you motivate and engage your trainees during emergency response training sessions?

Don't waste everyone's time if trainees need to know what they're supposed to get out of it. Up front, tell them: 1. Why this training matters (benefits them or the company). 2. What skills they'll walk away with (specific and useful). 3. How you'll measure their learning (tests, tasks, etc.). No mystery, just clear goals and expectations. Use that SMART stuff to keep things focused and track progress. The bottom line is that trainees need a roadmap, not a surprise quiz.

To motivate and engage your trainees during emergency response training, start by setting clear goals and explaining the training objectives and expectations. Use different methods like simulations, hands-on practice, and multimedia to keep the sessions varied. Encourage trainees to get involved through role-playing and discussions, and offer constructive feedback while recognizing their efforts. Lastly, make the training fun and relevant by adding enjoyable elements and relating the material to real-life situations.

Key to gaining acceptance and high levels of participation in such training is the need to ensure you understand the audience and their needs. Stated clearly for purposes of designing your training, ask yourself "What's in it for them" to undergo the training exercise and "What needs are met for them by the training? Have you done pre-interviews with the stakeholders to discover their needs, concerns, issues, and expectations? Once discovered build them into the training where feasible, practical, and possible, and acknowledge their assistance.

We have found in our 50 years of working in the field that the more realistic and engaging the training is the more the trainees enjoy and learn. Recognizing you have three styles of learning in trainees: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic (touch, feel, and integrate) the learning exercises must include all three sensory approaches. Using the principles of the Collaborative Informed Consent(R) model of engagement and communications, we have found increasing levels of participation when we ensure that we first inform, then educate and engage our audiences. We collaborate with our clients to build exercises that are applicable to the needs we have discovered through our pre-interviews. Each client's needs will vary and must be respected.

Engaging companies that can provide real-time simulations of social media such as Twitter, Tik-Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, and Truth Social will increase levels of participation and allow trainees to "experience" what it will be like when the "kaka hits the rotary blades" in the real world. We recommend a Google search for such providers. Our use of them in the past has added a much more realistic element to the exercises.

We use a process of Plus/Delta. We ask our trainees to tell us what they liked about the exercise and to be specific. We also ask them about the room, temperature, accommodations, food, etc. We capture all their input word by word respecting to ensure we don't generalize or misinterpret that feedback. Then, we ask what they would change and how the change would improve the exercise, correct mistakes we have made, help the trainers become better facilitators, etc. in other words we ask for the Deltas.

As someone who has made every mistake that can be made in 50 years, I am not one to shy away from sharing my lessons learned and how I learned them often the hard way. We also share experiences good and bad with other clients we have worked with, of course, maintaining their confidentiality and not revealing client names. We also provide lists of reference articles, reports, and after-action memos we have collected over the years. We help them review the exercise and the "behaviors" they expressed, experienced, or observed during it and how other clients behaved in real-time to explore what went right and what went south quickly. We then ask them to share how they would approach things differently next time in their decision-making process.

In my experience, relevance is key to engagement. But site specificity is not just best practice, it is a requirement under Australian Standards. I can't count the number of clients we work with who report generic, non-site-specific training from previous providers when undertaking Warden/Emergency Control Organisation training. They frequently tell us that this is the first time they have been shown the Fire Indicator Panel and/or Occupant Warning System... that they have no idea how to identify an activated smoke detector, or differentiate it from other systems such as Emergency lighting. How can a Chief Warden coordinate an effective response without knowledge of the installed systems to assist with occupant safety during an emergency?

Fun. I have to respectfully disagree. Emergency planning, emergency management, and any true emergency are not fun. Relevance is different. It is important to utilize real-world terms when discussing communication, and it is just as important to use them in training. Fun is not a real-world term for training. Relevant is a key component. Everyone has loved one. Be it a person or animal. The goals for most are the same. Mitigate the harsh realities of an emergency. If you can integrate relevancy to each person, you can "hammer" in the relevance of why they are they. Engaging and relevant will always lead to better results than having "fun."

As a behavioral psychologist, when we conduct exercises we are always observing the behavioral responses to the various injections we make in the exercise. How did the client react verbally and nonverbally? What did they do first, second? How did they approach making decisions? Did they collaborate, cooperate, and define in advance consensus, so that if consensus was needed later everyone understood the parameters within which they would operate? What seemed to trouble them the most? Was there a high level of anxiety in the room? If so, why? What is causing it? Who was the leader? Did other leaders emerge? Did the principals understand their roles? How long did it take to reach decisions and take action? Who was engaged and who wasn't?

A well prepared Emergency Plan that addresses various types of emergencies based on a facility's risk profile/assessment, one that considers training for all staff in effective emergency response in accordance with the identified procedures, and one that is able to be implemented in the event of a real emergency is integral. It is important that the plan is tested, and that an emergency planning committee oversees the process. In my experience, if training is not well thought out... if the training liability posed by the plan is not easily achievable for the organisation... or if there is no genuine vested interest from the organisation in ensuring they meet their own training requirements... then the plan simply gathers dust.