Safety training teaches employees procedures and how to recognize risks, but at the moment it truly matters – during an emergency or under acute time pressure – that knowledge is often not available, according to a US safety consultant. That is the claim made by Leo Damone in an opinion piece in trade publication ISHN (United States), published on September 28, 2026. According to Damone, under acute stress people do not fall back on what they know, but on what they have rehearsed.
Why doesn’t safety training always stick?
Damone argues that under acute threat, the brain automatically switches to survival responses such as fight, flight or freeze, at the expense of the conscious, analytical processing engaged during classroom training. Knowledge acquired only in a calm, safe learning environment, he contends, often remains inaccessible once the body goes into a stress response. That, he suggests, would explain why employees who successfully completed a training still respond incorrectly – or not at all – in an acute situation. The opinion piece does not back up this claim with research or figures.
What makes training more effective?
Separate from the stress question, independent research has examined which training formats are most effective. According to a meta-analysis by Burke et al., cited in a systematic literature review by the US occupational safety authority NIOSH, training that used behavioral modeling, extensive hands-on practice and dialogue was generally more effective than training consisting mainly of passive information transfer, such as a video or presentation. Researchers (Burke et al.) broadly distinguish three levels of engagement: passive information transfer, interaction with feedback, and hands-on practice in a simulated or real work environment. Knowledge acquisition and actual reductions in accidents and injuries were found to correlate with that level of engagement.
Context
The NIOSH literature review (publication no. 2010-127) concludes that training has a demonstrable effect on safe work behavior, but found insufficient evidence of a direct effect on injury and illness. The study does cite the Burke et al. meta-analysis, which shows that knowledge acquisition and actual reductions in accidents and injuries correlated with the degree to which employees were actively involved in training. NIOSH further concludes that management support is crucial to transferring new knowledge and skills to the shop floor, and that the best results occur when employees are given the opportunity to apply what they have learned after training, or when that behavior is reinforced by policy and workplace climate.
Source: The Moment Training Doesn’t Reach, September 28, 2026
Additionally reviewed: NIOSH systematic literature review, “A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Training and Education for the Protection of Workers” (publication no. 2010-127)
