If you want to maintain a safe workplace, you can’t stop training, even in a down economy. But you can improve training effectiveness and efficiency to keep costs down so that you get the best ROI for each training dollar you spend.

In response to the economic downturn, the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) has developed an economic survival guide showing employers how to maintain effective and efficient training programs on a tighter budget.

ASTD’s survival guide emphasizes five key strategies:

1.  Create a learning culture. Communicate to employees the importance of learning and mobilize your workforce so that growth and development of human resources continue to be a priority across the organization despite economic restrictions. 
2.  Review budgets for efficiency. Focus on must-have training and consider putting more resources into the most cost-effective approaches.
3.  Use technology-based training tools. One of best ways to cut training costs without sacrificing effectiveness is to transition more resources to online training or to use off-the-shelf training on CD or DVD. That way you can reach the most employees for the lowest cost and maximize available training dollars.
4.  Maximize training talent. Make it easy for your trainers to perform their training assignments well. Provide them with the training and materials they need to train employees effectively.
5.  Ensure strategic links between training and business goals. “When you focus on the core goals,” says ASTD, “you can identify the competencies you need to develop and ultimately spend your training dollars more wisely.”

Great news! BLR's renowned Safety.BLR.com® website is now available in Version 2.0. Take our no-cost site tour! Or better yet, try it at no cost or obligation for a full 2 weeks.

Stretch Your Training Resources

At a time when budget considerations are paramount, what makes more sense than an all-in-one safety training and compliance solution?

Safety.BLR.com is that solution. This one-stop training megaresource allows you to stretch tight training dollars to comfortably cover all your critical safety training needs. At Safety.BLR.com you’ll find the perfect safety presentation for every employee and every safety concern.

Whether safety training is mandated by OSHA, by your employer, or simply by your personal desire to keep employees safe, the safety meeting is a great forum for communicating information. Safety.BLR.com’s safety meetings are efficient, practical, and cost-effective. The half hour or so you spend once or twice a month will be repaid in fewer accidents and a safer workplace. What more could you ask from any safety initiative?

This kind of practical, actionable advice is just one of the reasons why we think Safety.BLR.com is such a terrific resource for safety professionals. In addition to giving you ways to make your safety meeting better, it also provides you with more than 185 prewritten safety meetings on just about any topic you can imagine.

Now there's much more of a good thing! Try the new Version 2.0 of Safety.BLR.com. Go here to take a no-cost site tour or here to try it in your own office!

Simple and Cost-Effective

Training responsibilities become a snap with Safety.BLR.com. The website includes thousands of audio and PowerPoint® presentations, meetings, toolbox talks, trainer's guides, and much, much more. You’ll find training tools on more than 150 safety topics, along with plain-English compliance analysis and other resources.

BLR® recently revamped Safety.BLR.com to meet your needs even better. Those of you who used the site in its original version will be amazed by all the new features and functionality. Highlights include:

  • Side-by-Side State/Federal Compliance. By placing our state and federal regulatory analysis side by side, you easily see how to fully comply with both governmental entities.
  • MSDS Library Expansion. The site now provides an immense library of 3.5 million MSDS forms, with about 10,000 more added or changed every week. Need one? Just call up the chemical by name, manufacturer, product group, or CAS number, then print it out.
  • Newsletter Wizard. If you've ever wanted to publish a safety newsletter but felt lacking in editorial skills, this new addition is for you.
  • Plan Builder. Select from our library of safety plans, customize them to suit your company's needs, and assemble them into collections you can save in our personal library.

We're pretty excited about Safety.BLR.com and all of its recent enhancements, and we’re eager for you to experience it, too. That's why we've created a complimentary site tour, available here. It takes just 5 minutes.

If you like what you see, you're invited to try the site at no cost and with no obligation. We'll even give you a complimentary Special Report for doing so. Take a 5-minute tour of the new Safety.BLR.com. It may be just what you're looking for.

Can You Help Us Out?
We would like to hear from you on how the training function has been affected at your organization. All information provided in this very brief survey will be confidential (but we'll share the overall numbers with you at a later date).

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