HSE Training Safety first

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Are you wasting money on health and safety training?


In cash strapped times, a training needs analysis can help you to identify training which is valuable, meaningful and will change behaviour in your organisation.

Health and safety training can influence how safe your employees will be at work and also protect your organisation from a loss of productivity, poor reputation or a prosecution.

However, if not managed properly it can become a costly waste of time. A blanket approach to training can be a drain on resources and finances and demotivate employees if the training is not meaningful to them.

A “one size fits all” approach will distort your message on health and safety and may appear over the top, increasing your chances of failing to deliver the most relevant part of the message effectively.
How can you change the traditional approach to health and safety training?

You can move away from the “band aid” approach by carrying out a training needs analysis which will help you to target your training to specific employees and can be as important as delivering the training itself in getting results.

By working closely with all the teams in your organisation you can identify the needs and focus on who needs to be trained and what type of training they need.

How a training needs analysis works

We recently helped one client to save money by:
carrying out a training needs analysis
planning and managing the training roll out; and
delivering the health and safety training.

The client had over 10,000 employees spread across the UK. We identified their biggest areas of exposure as ergonomics and ensuring that their Facilities Team were able to competently deliver health and safety on a day to day basis.

We worked closely with their internal teams to identify who needed to be trained and in which topic. We looked at job descriptions, risk assessments and whether employees had received any training before and prioritised teams for training based on their risk profile.

The main challenge we faced was that the people identified were spread over the UK at different offices. Resourcing the day to day business meant that trainees were restricted in the amount of time they could take out of their day and travel to a central location.

Manual handling training

We began by reviewing job descriptions, identifying and risk assessing tasks to try and reduce the need for manual handling altogether. Where manual handling could not reasonably be reduced we collated lists of employees who needed training and arranged a mixture of corrective coaching and classroom learning depending on the number of people in each location and the type of handling they carried out.

Display screen equipment assessor training

The client needed additional assessors to support the roll out of new display screen equipment assessment software. We engaged with key people within the organisation to help us identify the right people to train and arranged training in their local offices to ensure that it suited their specific office furniture and processes.

IOSH Managing Safely in Practice

The client had recently expanded their Facilities Management team. They had employees at each of their offices who were responsible for the day to day management of health and safety. To ensure their competency, we recommended that they attend an IOSH Managing Safely in Practice course which we tailored to their specific environment. We also identified those who had already achieved a qualification who would need a refresher, saving the organisation money by not investing in a course someone had already attended.

Planning and delivery of training

When carrying out the training needs analysis we planned the training courses around people’s schedules and roles. Our skilled consultants were able to deliver this effectively by considering the client’s procedures and limitations on training budget.

Monitoring

We monitored the progress of all training including course costs and impact on the client’s budget and provided a weekly report of progress and attendance at all training courses. The client is already starting to see an improvement in the performance of employees in the Facilities Team and a transfer of learning from the classroom to the work environment.

Record keeping

As part of this project we developed a training database which included dates of any refresher courses and additional training. We also included estimations of future training costs so the client could plan ahead. We collated certificates and maintained a training database to ensure that records could be easily accessed to ensure compliance.

Getting results

This project enabled our client to improve the competence of their employees whilst ensuring legal compliance. We also worked within their budget and looked for efficiency savings.

System Concepts can help you to carry out a training needs analysis and ensure that you have the best programme that fits the needs of your business and employees. We provide a range of accredited and bespoke courses for all levels within an organisation to ensure you have a breadth and depth of health and safety competency. For more information please contact us.