Benefits of Online Training vs. In-person Safety Meetings
Added safety training doesn’t have to take your drivers off the job. Get all your drivers in the classroom, every time, by making the classroom virtual. The benefits are practical and meet some of your toughest challenges.
Proven benefits of online training
Get all your drivers there
I’m happy when I can get even half my drivers to a safety meeting. But look—you’ve got 80,000 pounds of truck barreling down the highway at 70 miles an hour. Continuous safety training for all is non-negotiable. With online modules, you get 100% of your drivers at each training, with modules they can access from their smartphones. Safer roads mean fewer accidents and a protected business.
Avoid parked trucks
When you don’t pull drivers into meetings, you’re not pulling them off the job. When you’re not pulling them off the job, you’re not parking trucks for days at a time. Parked trucks mean thousands of dollars in lost revenue per day. Multiply that by the number of employees at each safety meeting, and calculate how much you can save.
Avoid loss of other revenue
Here are some other places you’re saving money:
- Extra day(s) of work for employees
- Meeting materials, food, and other incidentals
- Travel expenses for drivers
- Travel expenses for Safety Directors to all your terminals 4x a year
- Total costs of training for each driver who snoozes through training! (We’ve all seen it happen…)
Also:
- With better training, insurance rates go down.
- Shippers are confident shipping with a safe company.
Add it up and see what you find.
Keep track of documentation
Eliminate the paper! Paperwork, signed and dated, protects you in case of an emergency or litigation. But if you decide to use the Infinit-I training system, all of your training documentation automatically files away electronically, signed and dated, ready to be pulled up the moment you need it.
Train more than quarterly
Frequency changes behavior. An online training model also means you can train more than 4x a year. What if you set up training once a month? If you enhance training with a 5-7 minute video 12x a year, you will immediately start to see a difference in your budget and your ability to stay accountable.
Remediate right away
A driver gets a ticket. If that driver gets in an accident after one ticket, and you didn’t take immediate action to correct behavior, at best, you’re not in a good place legally. At worst, a tragedy has occurred for the vehicle hit. It won’t matter that you are in Texas and they were in Montreal. It’s not worth it to ignore violations because it’s inconvenient to route a driver in. Working with Infinit-I’s system, you can communicate clearly to drivers what they need for remediation, and auto-document when they’ve done it.
Stay on top of FMSCA regulations
The same thing applies to FMSCA updates as to remediations. Respond and communicate right away—clearly, consistently, and to everyone.
Offer continuing education
Sometimes it’s not about safety or urgent behavior modification. Your drivers want and need career development. You can use online training modules as an opportunity for them to add to their learning and experience voluntarily, too.
Supplement necessary in-person training
Online training doesn’t replace in-person training. It frees you up to save them for times you really need them. It cuts out the “meeting burnout” factor, increases engagement, and increases the number of drivers present. You can use in-person training to supplement online training or vice versa, and you can construct your training strategy to meet your needs. Online training is flexible.
Increase engagement
Who stays bright eyed and bushy tailed in an all-day training session? And, what if you’re tired, sick, or have had a bad day? When you train online, you get:
- Flexibility to make in-person occasions special, so you’re not getting a bunch of drivers there who are already tired of meetings
- Creating more space to approach training with a positive mindset
- Changing “I have to be in this room, right now,” to “Here’s your time frame for completing a certain number of videos.”
- Treating employees like adults: completing assignments within their own schedule vs. forced attendance
Show drivers you mean business
When you’re willing to make a change to be more efficient, you’re sending a signal to drivers that you’re listening to their needs, you’re on top of your game, and you’re keeping the standard high.
Common concerns
Let’s briefly address a couple of concerns you might have with using an online system:
But we like seeing our drivers 4x a year!
Super! Again, we don’t discourage in-person training or relationship-building. The online system is meant to beef up, streamline, and supplement any training philosophy that works best for you.
Can I afford to add an extra “thing” to my business?
Sometimes an extra is extra; sometimes a new tool increases efficiency so much, you can’t imagine your business without it. We want you to do what’s right for you. Project the costs you could save with online training. Each trucking business has its own needs, and we want to work with you to figure out how Infinit-I could click into the system you already have. If it doesn’t save you money, it’s not for you. But we think it definitely will.
I’m not tech-savvy.
Each Infinit-I solution is custom-built for each company and easy to onboard. It’s made for typical people— not tech wizards. You’ve probably got some drivers more comfortable with smartphones and the Internet than others. That’s OK! We’ve got ideas for helping drivers, and we offer lots of support for clients. What if there’s a glitch or a driver has a question? We’ve got a driver support system they can access from our website.
We hope this helps you as you build your business! See the full suite of what we offer trucking companies. You can also get in touch with any questions, or sign up for a free demo.
Want more? Come to one of our FREE SAFETY-ENHANCEMENT SEMINARS in Dallas, TX.
