For those who’re round my age, then you recognize the enjoyment of utilizing an previous paper map. Not actual pleasure, clearly. Extra the form of pleasure usually related to making an attempt to maintain observe of three pages, getting advised off for not holding it the proper approach up, or for giving directions too late, and discovering that the highway you have been confidently following was changed by a retail park someday in the course of the Blair years.
A paper map is just helpful for so long as the world stays nonetheless. The second roads change, roundabouts vanish, diversions seem, or anyone decides to show half the city right into a one-way system designed by a sadist, that map turns into much less a information and extra a historic artefact. Beautiful in case you are Christopher Columbus. Much less helpful in case you are making an attempt to get to Leeds for a 10am assembly.
That, in essence, is how most safety consciousness coaching nonetheless works; like a paper map. Printed at a second in time and handed out at scale. The content material could be superb. The design could also be polished. However none of that modifications the essential drawback. It’s static. The menace panorama is just not.
Threats don’t stand politely nonetheless whereas your annual coaching cycle catches up. Attackers change techniques continuously as a result of they’re making an attempt to succeed, not protect the integrity of your procurement course of. Phishing lures at the moment are formed by AI, tuned to context, tailor-made to the person, and adjusted sooner than most organisations can replace a slide deck. By the point subsequent 12 months’s consciousness module rolls spherical, the menace it was designed to handle has already had a number of costume modifications and a passport renewal.
It’s additionally price taking into consideration that individuals change too, not simply the threats. The one that appeared low danger six months in the past could now be drowning in a brand new position, coping with unfamiliar suppliers, dealing with strain they didn’t have earlier than, and are one rushed Friday away from making a regrettable choice. A static programme can not see that. It can not reroute. It can not say there’s bother forward, keep away from this highway, do that as a substitute. It simply sits there, insisting this area was the A41.
This is the reason customized coaching must seem like one thing a lot nearer to Google Maps. It must be responsive and private. Conscious of what’s taking place now, not what was true when the coaching content material was commissioned and everybody nonetheless thought fax machines had a future. If there’s a pile-up forward, it ought to know. If one route is riskier than one other, it ought to alter. If somebody is driving, biking, strolling, or taking public transport, it ought to perceive that totally different individuals want totally different steering relying on the context they’re in.
Safety consciousness ought to work the identical approach. The brand new joiner doesn’t want the identical intervention because the finance director. The one that simply failed a complicated phishing simulation doesn’t want a generic reminder that phishing exists, in the identical approach a driver caught behind a motorway collision doesn’t want a be aware explaining that roads can typically be busy. They want well timed steering, based mostly on what is going on round them, that helps them make a greater choice in that second.
That’s what dynamic coaching does. It meets individuals the place they’re. It takes account of behaviour, context, strain, patterns, and modifications over time. It understands that behaviour change is just not achieved by displaying everybody the identical video yearly and hoping muscle reminiscence one way or the other varieties out of company obligation.
Google Maps can be helpful as a result of it lets individuals contribute again. Spot an accident, a pace lure, a closed lane, and you’ll report it so others profit. Safety tradition ought to have the identical high quality. If an worker spots one thing suspicious, reporting it ought to be simple, inspired, and truly helpful to everybody else. A phish alert button isn’t just a function. It’s your equal of warning the drivers behind you that there’s a flaming bin lorry overturned in lane two. Shared visibility issues.
Then there’s personalisation. Keep away from toll roads. Keep away from motorways. Take public transport. Stroll as a substitute. The route modifications relying on what is smart for you. Safety coaching ought to be no totally different. Some customers want extra assist. Some want much less. Some are repeatedly focused. Some are constantly resilient. Some want teaching within the second. Some want reinforcement over time. Treating all of them the identical is like telling a bike owner and an HGV driver to comply with the equivalent route after which appearing shocked when anyone results in a canal.
An honest safety consciousness programme shouldn’t behave like a memento map from the age of sail. It ought to behave like a dwelling navigation system. It ought to mirror present threats, present customers, present pressures, and present behaviours. It ought to assist individuals keep away from hazard earlier than they fall into it. It ought to study. It ought to adapt. It ought to reroute.
As a result of in case your coaching can not inform the distinction between the highway because it was and the highway as it’s, then it isn’t guiding anybody anyplace. It’s simply nostalgia with branding.
