Making Toolbox Talks Effective Safety Training

For this article, we review research that compared the impact of delivering toolbox talks with and without questions and answers from the group. The study tested changes in the levels of safety knowledge and workplace safety climate.

The results show that safety knowledge retention increases when we include narratives, discussion and questions in toolbox talks. For less-experienced workers, they are particularly impactful.

However, the results also show that there is no significant change in workplace safety climate when we train using toolbox talks.