A Guide to Health and Safety Training

Health and safety training is an important aspect to any workplace, of which it is the employer's duty to make sure that their staff are prepared to deal with any emergency to ensure their safety in the work place. Your employees are the best people to ask about improving the communication regarding safety. They will understand the potential ricks that occur each day and with their help you will be able to identify solutions to the problems that will arise. They will also help your company to develop a positive attitude to health and safety culture.

Employees that are made to feel valued in the workplace and feel involved in the decision making usually creates a high achieving work force. It also shows as a company how you take their health seriously and will allow for them to raise any concerns they may have and offer informed solutions. Other benefits of tackling health and safety training are lower accident rates, a positive attitude about the safety in the workplace alongside a better understanding of the risks. Not only will risks be identified but will also create a better control of them.

There is a significant difference in accident rates where employees feel they have had a voice in the health and safety training, accident rates have been lower compared to those that have been left uninvolved. Also employees that felt like they had a positive attitude to safety felt like they could raise issues compared to those that did not think there was a positive attitude. Case studies that are available do show clearly that there is a significant difference between companies that get involved their employees involved in making the company safer.

One way of getting the ball rolling for health and safety training is to have a safety officer to help the employer and employees discuss the way in which things can be improved to follow the laws and regulations in the UK. Alternatively there are many companies that offer safety packages to help small companies to large corporations organize safety in the company. Training can be given to employees for fire wardens, risk assessments, manual handling and stress management. These companies completely remove the burden that many large businesses may feel about safety and will offer strong support to help keep improve employee safety and reduce accidents.

Clients' OHS Duty of Heed for Contractors

As far as OHS management plan is concerned the law makes no distinction between responsibilities for employees and contractors working on-site for an organization. These laws are primarily state based but they differ very little. For more information go to the relevant work safety website in your state.

The general safety requirements apply to the IT industry as to any other. Computer safety issues apply such as ergonomic chairs, non-glare screens and safe lifting and moving of computer equipment.

All people working on electrical equipment should receive written material outlining safety procedures regarding electric shock and related hazards. This information should include avoiding electric shock such as procedures for indicating whether wires are live (carrying current) or not. Also advice should be provided as to what action to take if someone is suffering an electric shock. Other safety considerations include not working on live equipment where an employee or contractor could bang their head on a sharp object such as a shelf.

A Contractor OHS Management System consists of four main stages in the contracting process. These are:

1. Writing tender and contract specifications.

2. Evaluating tenders.

3. Pre-commencement planning of work.

4. On-site control and monitoring.

When writing the tender and contract specifications you should comply with OHS legislation and obtain demonstrated evidence, such as company forms and records, of the tenderer’s own OHS management system and OHS performance record. This information should be used in evaluating the tender. For medium to high risk contracts (which may include work on computer hardware) the tender and contract should require the contractor to develop a project specific Health and Safety Management plan before starting the job. This plan must be developed in consultation with site management and set out the OHS practices and procedures that will apply during the contract. Once approved by management, the plan becomes the basis as a work method statement inspections and internal and external audits for the duration of the contract.

Employees on Safe Work Methods

A Safe Work Method Statement or SWMS is a document that contains strictly implemented standards concerning how certain tasks can be performed safely and effectively. This document is intended for tasks or activities that are identified as "high-risk" or dangerous. Safe Work Method Statements explains in detail how hazards in the workplace should be managed or controlled. Companies and business owners are encouraged to prepare a Method Statement before allowing their employees carry out high risk tasks.

Work Method Statement is often prepared right after conducting a Job Safety Analysis or JSA. The JSA is responsible for checking the components of every task in the company and identifying the possible hazards and control measures for each part of the task. Besides the actual job or activity, a JSA also inspects the individuals who are assigned to perform the task. The JSA observes how the person performs the tasks that are assigned to him/her. The JSA notes all possible hazards and also put the reasonable risk control measures in place to address any mistakes in the operations. After completing all these, a full risk assessment is necessary.

The information gathered from the JSA will be used to develop your company's Safe Work Method Statement or SWMS. It is necessary to create a Method Statement that employees must abide by before performing any task. Once all safe work methods are stated and outlined in the Method Statement it is automatically understood that everyone in the company-employers and employees-understand the dangers and risks involved before performing a particular task.

You need to include the following details when creating a Safe Work Method Statement:

• The name of the person assigned to the task, his or her qualifications and trainings that persons assigned to a task should be provided with.

• List of equipment that is needed to complete the task. This also identifies the inspections that have been performed or will be performed in the workplace.

• Description of every task that is to be performed. The potential hazards that is associated to a particular phase of the task. 

The Safe Work Method Statements or SWMS is a legal document which companies and employees should regard highly since it can promote safety in the workplace and smooth flow of business operations. It is very important for businesses to be prepared with a safety management system before they allow their employees carry out high-risk tasks. This will reduce the number of accidents in the workplace and also protect a business from legal problems in the future. A Safe Work Method Statement or SWMS should be prepared using plain English. It should be short and concise so that even employees with low literacy levels can understand and remember what was indicated in the document.