Training workshops for supervisors based on WISE have been carried out in all the companies participating in the project. Each workshop lasted three partial days and covered six subject areas: premises, proper lighting, practical workstations, efficient materials storage and handling, machine safety and welfare facilities.

Since the WISE experience clearly shows that local adaptability is an essential precondition to the success of interventions of this type, the case of WISE for supervisors in Haiti deserves special attention. The main novelty is that training was carried out directly at the workplace, towards the end of the working day. Instead of moving the supervisors to a special training facility, they remained in a very familiar environment. This greatly facilitated their playing an active role in the training process. To further improve understanding and dialogue, all the simple, user-friendly materials were translated into Creole and training took place in Creole.

The very fact that training activities are not disconnected from the workplace allows immediate follow-up in terms of proposed action. At given moments during training the participants examine their workplace, check opportunities for immediate improvement and, working as teams, elaborate concrete proposals for action. This makes the participants aware that what they learn from training may be transformed immediately into workplace intervention to improve working conditions and productivity.

The key features of this training for immediate action are given below.

• Based on WISE for the garment industry
• Targeted at supervisors
• Carried out directly in enterprises during working hours
• Training and materials in Creole
• Quite simplified and very user friendly
• Highly interactive
• Targeted at immediate action
  

While the training workshops were evaluated very positively by the participating supervisors, they were concerned that their employers might not introduce the suggested improvements since, in the Haitian garment industry, delegation of decision-making to supervisors has been rare. In order to evaluate the real impact of the training exercise in terms of action, the enterprises that had participated in the supervisors' workshops were visited shortly after the series of workshops ended in May 2003. In many enterprises, a sort of cascade effect was detected with a great number of suggested improvements already implemented.