To think that generic workplace training is a waste of time?

[MargoLivebetter]

I'm ploughing my way through the mind bendingly dull workplace training that I have to do annually. Display screen equipment, essential health & safety, fire awareness and HSE for homeworkers. Nowadays they force us to sit through them and only then can you answer the equally pointless questions to be awarded your achievement certificate (whoop, whoop). I've worked in an office for over 30 years and if I don't know how to sit on a chair, lift a box or leave a burning building by now, I think I'm probably never going to.

The one that makes me laugh the most is the fire awareness training, where you are forced to learn the different types of fire, what each extinguisher is for and how you use it, only for the most significant piece of guidance to be that if you see if a fire you should sound the alarm, leave the building immediately and not attempt to tackle it!!!!!

I know that we have to do these wretched courses so that HR can tick their box saying that all employees have been trained on how to sit at a desk, so if we get backache we can't sue them, but .........

And don't get me started on the unconscious bias, social media awareness or proprietary information courses.

Anyhow, as this is MN, I'm opening the floor to hear what golden vital nuggets that other posters have uncovered in their workplace training that they couldn't have functioned without!!!!

It’s for compliance. If someone messes up, the company will say - ‘we’ve given you training’. If someone complains - ‘they were trained adequately’. I have to go through monthly dire training, so I feel the pain but it’s to cover asses.

It’s necessary for insurance.

If you are being paid to be there, what's the issue ?

Back in the day when I was serving my time in a drawing office, a wise draughtman gave me advice I never forgot.

" Calm down. You get paid the same for rubbing out as you do for drawing"

I am with you OP. Those are just made to tick boxes when frankly all you really need to be told is:

• if there is a fire leave the building and meet everyone else at the designated meeting point
• treat all you r colleagues and clients with respect
• don't leave things lying around so people don't trip over
• if you have any issues with you desk/screen speak to your manager.

Beyond that, it is just time wasted. Staff that want to be fire Marshall and first aiders will get more detailed training.

Loved when we had to do a face to face fire training course back in the day - when asked what to do if the alarm sounded - one participant shouted - ‘run out the building as fast as you can’ - we all laughed - except the guy leading the course - he had a total sense of humour bypass and launched into a monologue about why we must not run but walk calmly…

these things just have to be done! Try and see the funny side in it!

The how not to drink and drive course I did for a company car.

Wanted to joke that I'd been doing it for years until that course.

I did some online health and safety training last week... Fortunately, most of it consisted of a YouTube video I could speed up, and them some stupidly easy questions to answer.
I've repeatedly wondered over the years what would happen if I just quietly stopped doing these "online training" courses...?
I'm highly regarded in my work place, and honestly, I'm not convinced they'd bother me about it... I just haven't quite been brave enough yet!

Yes this. For my sins I lead H&S and should anything happen we need to be able to show we have provided adequate training and safety interventions.
If the HSE came knocking and found us non compliant we'd be in a whole heap of trouble

Yeah, I had to go on an in person manual handling course. I am disabled and use a wheelchair. We were all shown how we need to bend at the knee, reach around the item and stand. Erm. Can't do any of those things...

@RedTagAlan get your point, but the training is in addition to my job. My boss couldn't give a flying fuck about the training, he just wants me to do the work that he gives me, but I am relentlessly hounded by HR to complete the training before their deadlines expire.

@PersonIrresponsible wow, that is wild. 😂

Oh god @Bearsinmotion what a complete waste of your time!

If you are being paid to be there, what's the issue ?

Lots of people have a workload that just builds up if you aren't doing it for any reason. Not everyone is in jobs where you just deal with customers who are in front of you at the time or other jobs where if you aren't there, the work stops coming into your in box.

OP YANBU.

At the very least, you should be able to answer the questions / take the test to show you have the knowledge already, without having to spend an hour sitting through all the pointless videos that say the same thing as the pointless videos the year before, and the year before that

My favourite fire safety questions were about the types of gasses and chemicals released during a fire.

I don't care! Knowing it isn't going to change my fiery fate.

But you are being paid.

Lets frame it a bit different.

When you sit through the safety advice before takeoff on a flight, do you dismiss it as box ticking, a waste of your time ?

And if something happened on a flight where there was no safety briefing, would you shrug your shoulders and say " ahh well" ?

To this day I wish I'd taken a screengrab of the cartoon drawing used to illustrate the key H&S point of why we must not use our laptops on our knees whilst driving....!

Thank goodness they told me 🙄

@RedTagAlan well if my courses told me anything half as useful as how to exit the specific plane that I would be sitting on, in an emergency, I think I would be more enthusiastic.

In today's course, I learnt the importance of cleanliness in the workplace, how to wipe my screen and telephone, that you can turn your keyboard upside down to empty crumbs from it, at what angle most people tilt their head to read (its 15%), that my chair should be sat on, that if I don't move from time to time I might get stiff and possibly wet myself (although they didn't actually say the wetting yourself bit) and that I can pull curtains or blinds to remove glare from the sun, along with lots of other scintillating details about a generic workplace that if I don't know in my mid 50s, then I shouldn't be working at all!!!! I am obliged to watch the entire course, which was 45 minutes long and then I am also obliged to take the mandatory test afterwards, in order to be certified. 55 minutes in total. I have 3 more of these to do, all of which I have done before many, many, many times. You can't even rattle through the test, because the questions are read out by the course narrator, as well as appearing on the screen.

Can't wait to spend another hour tomorrow learning all about the different types of fires and extinguishers only to be told at the end of the course that I should never try to tackle a fire myself!

@Woodstock23 I think I would have enjoyed that cartoon too!