At what point is training good enough?

dickydonkin

Health and safety training has to be 'suitable and sufficient 'and in respect of manual handling, I always promote the benefits of implementing training that is site/task/role specific and will incorporate practical and theoretical elements that will also involve the audience.

I don't believe there is any need to go into great detail regarding the legal aspect of the relevant regulations as safety training can be boring enough without ramming the law down the throat of your audience - a sure way to lose attention!

Let the safety professional interpret how the manual handling regs need to be applied to a given workplace.

An office worker would obviously need less training than someone whose job requires many manual handling activities during the course of their work and it is important to mention that manual handling is not just lifting and carrying.

Training does not have to be protracted, but the duration really depends on the manual handling risks within a workplace, but once your audience lose interest, you may as well be talking to the wall and the training is rendered meaningless.

I have seen on numerous occasions where someone (usually from HR) has attempted (and failed miserably) to satisfy the requirements of manual handling training. It will invariably include an empty cardboard box which the 'trainer' will show their audience how to lift correctly - which is fine if all the worker does all day is lift empty cardboard boxes!

As for signing confirmation you have 'received' the training, I too ask all attendees to sign an ATTENDANCE RECORD sheet, however, that signature will not sign away the duty holders statutory obligation to provide suitable and sufficient training.

I accept that many SME's simply cannot afford to employ a full time safety professional, but it is worth their while to send an employee on a manual handling 'Train the Trainer' course to enable them to train their staff.

Sadly, many employers won't even do that.

theoretica

Dry wrote: »

Lots of lifting awkward trolleys up steps that aren't designed to be lifted this way. A ramp of some sort would be very useful but we have none. Apparently they are on order but nobody knows how long you are You are 'trained' to ask for help if you can't lift something heavy but I am on my own, therefore there is nobody to ask. So you either take a chance and lift something that's heavier than you should lift or you don't do the work and then get into a dispute with your employer on the grounds of health and safety.

With all those issues why is it the training which has disturbed you? The problem isn't that there is a good way of doing this but you haven't been trained in it. If the employer has more than 5 employees it should have a written risk assessment. Does it adequately match the risk and the reality of what happens?

dickydonkin

theoretica wrote: »

If the employer has more than 5 employees it should have a written risk assessment.

Just to clarify - it is 5 or more and this also applies to the requirement of a health and safety policy.