Help them to learn while they laugh

Ask yourself this; when was the last time you paid full attention to the safety briefing on a flight?  If it was your first time on a flight or, if you are more safety conscious, then probably you would watch the briefing carefully, but next time look around the plane and see who else is paying attention… very few.  Is it that the information is not important or do many of us just feel that once we’ve seen the briefing a few times, we don’t need to watch it again?  After all, what has really changed?  Now ask yourself this;  if someone gave you a life vest today, would you know how to put it on?  If the answer is no, then perhaps we should concentrate more on the briefing. 

The problem for many of us is that the threat seems so low and the briefing so basic, that we assume we know the procedures. 

In the training world, the same applies to the health and safety briefing delivered in the morning.  

Adlabs was presented with this problem by the Honda Institute back in the early 2000’s.  Their training centre was home to a very successful range of apprenticeships, technical and senior commercial programmes.  How could we get such a diverse audience to engage with a safety presentation every day?  How could we get people to remember the precautions, especially when entering the workshop? 

Well, we went back to our training routes and asked ourselves how we engage people, as the safety briefing is really a very short training session.  Our most successful online training was that which engaged the learner through a series of short high impact, enjoyable sessions.  People learn more if the video they are watching is truly engaging, even entertaining.  So, now the objective was to make health and safety enjoyable… easy! 

Enter Rowland Rivron… a popular television personality of the time, a witty script and the wonders of some simple graphics.  What could possibly go wrong?