New research shows that companies complying with the letter of the law when it comes to safety training may be missing a crucial fact:

Some of their workers may not be able to understand the training, and companies are in denial about that.

Research by the Conference Board of Canada shows employers acknowledge that literacy among workers is a problem, but they’re not aware there are issues in their own workforce.

In a survey, 64% of employers thought safety policies were fully understood, but only 40% of workers said they completely “got” the material.

This isn’t entirely an issue of workers who speak English as a second language.

The problem is often that many workers read at a sixth grade level.

An employee who has the necessary language skills to carry out everyday work may not be able to understand certain safety documents.

Example: What would happen if a worker had to interpret information about a chemical on a wordy Material Safety Data Sheet, in an emergency?

The Conference Board report gives several suggestions for countering this potential problem. While it might be a tall order for small- and medium-size companies to provide their own adult literacy classes, there are things they can do:

• Look into adult literacy classes offered by local schools and make that information available to employees, and
• Provide regular reading comprehension practice for workers by giving them tasks that require some reading so they keep up their skills.