The Importance of Occupational Health and Safety Training

Employees are a company's greatest asset an employer has to assist in achieving business objectives, as well as meeting legal and moral obligations in providing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. Creating a safe work environment is critical to the success of your business, and one of the best ways to retain staff and maximise productivity. In 2013-14, 531,800 people experienced a work-related injury or illness.

To ensure you get the best out of your employees, it is essential that they are all provided with appropriate training on all aspects of their work including health and safety. Although it costs to implement safe practices and install safety equipment, the consequences of not taking action can be extremely severe.

Occupational Health and Safety Training (OHS) is a great way for employees to learn additional skills and knowledge and to reinforce quality work practices which will result in a change in workplace behaviour. Investing in effective employee training will increase skills, knowledge, productivity and morale as well as replace and avoid workplace incidents.

The Importance of OHS Training

Although there is the basic instinctive regard for our health and safety and for others around us, there are many other reasons to make occupation health and safety a priority in the workplace, this includes:

• Community expectations that organisations have a responsibility for those that work for them.
• Legal obligations.
• Insurable costs such as worker’s compensation premium that is linked to OHS performance.
• Uninsurable costs such as lost time injury and reduced productivity, staff replacement, retraining costs as well as loss of business reputation.
• Costs to the community, such as health services, rehabilitation and loss of skilled labour.
• Costs to employees through reduced quality of life as a result of workplace injury and disease, reduced income for the injured and their family and grief by everyone involved.

Health and Safety Representatives

Health and safety representatives (HSRs) are those elected to represent workers in the company on health and safety matters. HSRs facilitate the flow of information about health and safety between the company and the workers. Their role is to monitor the health and safety actions taken by the business, investigate any workers complaints and look into anything that might be a risk to the health and safety of the workers they represent.

Once a HSR has completed approved HSR training they are also able to direct unsafe work to cease when they have a reasonable concern that carrying out the work could expose a worker to a serious risk or injury. However, the direction to cease all work can only be given if the issue has not been resolved by consultation.

Health and safety representatives are a crucial role in making employee’s safer at work as they bring your employees’ OHS concerns to your attention where you otherwise may not have been aware. They also observe where potential hazards might exist in the workplace that you may not yet have noticed. HSRs also encourage all employees to use safe work practices and as they are elected by your employees, your employees will, therefore, feel more comfortable to approach and speak to them about any worries or concerns.