Refresher Training for Seasonal Workers

Many warehousing companies are concentrating heavily on onboarding as many new employees as they can at this time of year. They want to make sure they can satisfy demand during the hectic holiday season. However, due to the accelerated pace that the season demands, some new seasonal workers won’t receive all the training they require.

Refresher training for seasonal workers is the solution. 

Refresher Training: What Is It?

Retraining a course/training that you have already studied is known as refresher training. Refresher training jogs your memory and ensures that your knowledge is current. Refresher training for seasonal workers applies to practically any kind of training intervention or program. Still, it is widely used in compliance and safety training, where there are frequently explicit criteria for yearly or periodic retraining. It can support and entrench more complicated organizational procedures and processes. It can also help keep key knowledge current in employees’ thoughts.

Why Invest in Refresher Training?

Ignoring knowledge gaps in areas like rules and procedures, for instance, might cause costly errors for your organization, potential miscommunications, or even physical harm with missing safety information. In 2017, the National Safety Council reported that nearly 155 million workers were affected by workplace injuries, which resulted in costs of $161.5 billion. A large majority of these workplaces were based in warehouse settings. 

Additionally, students themselves sometimes complain that they find it difficult to remember important concepts long after a training session has ended and to recall them when they are needed. This is also not shocking. It’s crucial to consider the “forgetting curve,” or, more simply, the reality that employees quickly forget what they learn during training sessions. Employees are estimated to forget the following:

Here’s what the forgetting curve looks like for a single learning event.

Refresher training for seasonal workers can minimize the time, resource, and financial costs of the forgetting curve for a business.

Refresher Training for Warehousing Operations

Initiatives for refresher training are ‌beneficial for warehousing operations for a number of reasons including.

1. Operational Effectiveness

Again, the first is merely operational effectiveness. The more time spent making sure employees completely understand how to carry out their various job duties effectively, the higher the long-term return on that time investment will be, which should ultimately be the purpose of seasonal hiring.

Many businesses that hire seasonal workers wind up maintaining at least a part of them regularly, so it’s critical that those employees have the skills they require after the holiday season. In fact, when businesses invest in employees’ talents, such employees are more likely to stick around for several years, which lowers turnover. In consequence, this helps businesses save enormous sums of money on additional recruiting efforts and might even help develop leaders from individuals joining at the entry-level.

2. Keeps Safety Standards High

Companies should make sure they train employees for proper workplace safety, in addition to the basic skills of completing activities swiftly. All while aiming to squeeze as much efficiency as possible out of warehouse processes. Safety is crucial because it ensures both operational effectiveness and the well-being of employees, which goes without saying. Every workplace accident needs to be investigated, which necessitates closing off at least a portion of the warehouse floor and removing all personnel, not just the injured, while the inquiry is going on.

3. Efficiency

A materials distribution company called Modern Materials Handling added that decision-makers should ensure they are taking all reasonable steps to ensure efficiency on their end as well. This causes not only routinely ensuring that shift scheduling works smoothly but also considering how to improve the physical design of a warehouse to make it more favorable for completing tasks swiftly and efficiently.

Warehouses may wish to start with team-building exercises when deciding what training activities will be most beneficial for both new and veteran employees. For example, if one or two employees aren’t doing their fair share of the job because they haven’t received the necessary training, that could cause conflict among coworkers, especially during a time of high demand, like the holidays.

However, businesses might want to consider the long-term advantages of such training in terms of how much lower turnover will boost their bottom lines. They can then afford to pay their employees more and give them better benefits packages, all while assuring their safety and growing their business continuously.

How to Implement Refresher Training?

You’ve determined that your company needs Refresher training for seasonal workers, but what comes next? 

The next step is to pick a training technique, or a combination of techniques, to provide your worker’s refresher training. Digital training solutions like, how.fm, allow you to deliver complete health and safety instructions via tablets or mobile phones. They allow each worker to learn at their own pace, and in over 30 languages. Moreover, you can use the same training software to train employees in job instructions The best part? You’ll be freeing up staff members to work on other crucial projects; thus getting rid of constant shadowing. We also provide thousands of templates that may be customized to meet the training needs of contract logistics and warehouses. Start the refresher training now.

Refresher Training Checklist

As the warehouse operations manager, it’s important to keep your team fresh on the latest safety procedures and updates. Scheduling a refresher course every few months is a great way to do this. Not only will everyone be up-to-date on the latest safety guidelines. They’ll also have a better understanding of how their individual roles contribute to the overall warehouse operation.

Download our Refresher Training Checklist today so you can know what should be included in your next refresher training course.