Health & Safety Training

In order to promote a positive Health & Safety environment training is vital so that your employees understand the effects it can have on them and also your business.

A good start to your training is your company induction and you should include the following points

• Identify the health & safety policy of the organisation including a summary of the organisation and arrangements including employee consultation
• A brief summary of the health and safety management system including the name of the employees direct supervisor, safety rep and source of Health & Safety information
  
• The employee responsibility towards Health & Safety including general rules i.e. smoking
• The organisations accident reporting procedure, location of first aid box and first aiders
• Fire and all other emergency procedures including muster point
  
• Summary of risk assessments
• Location of welfare facilities, restrooms, canteen etc
• Manual handling techniques
• Use of personal protective clothing
• Details of hazardous substances

This list is not exhaustive and should relate to your work premises, all employees should receive some refresher training approx 3 months from date of employment, this can be something simple for example a questionnaire etc to ensure that the employee is fully aware of their responsibilities.

Job specific training

Sometimes the classroom is not suitable for specific training and using the ‘toolbox talk’ method is sometimes more effective, visual stimulation can be a great learning resource and demonstrating how equipment is supposed to be used effectively and safely can be more productive than explaining it using diagrams on a sheet of paper.

It is important to note that tool box training should not really be used for complicated or detailed pieces of information as the workplace can sometimes get in the way of learning i.e. time, noise etc.

Supervisory & Management Training

As with everything in business it all comes from the top! A good example promoting Health & safety will in turn impress onto your team how important Health & Safety is and they will in turn follow your example, unfortunately this also works in the reverse and if employees see their managers or supervisor behaving in a manner that could be deemed unsafe they it is very likely that they will follow suit.

This leads us to the importance of training your managers and supervisors; this will not only keep them up-to-date with current legislation but keep them refreshed in the importance of Health & safety in the workplace.

Specialist Training

Specialist training refers more to an activity than to a particular job, for example first aid, forklift driving, scaffold inspection etc and successful applicants are awarded certificates to be able to prove their competence.

An example of a training course

Fire Prevention

• Cause of Fire
• How Fire spreads
• Fire & smoke alarm systems
• Emergency lighting
• High risk operations
• Good housekeeping principles

It is important that training is ongoing and that all employees are regularly refreshed, a good way of tracking this is to produce a skills matrix. Click here for our free download