Health & Safety Training
Paul Golden examines the challenges now facing both trainers and managers in the face of recent onerous Health & Safety legislative requirements.
Even the most cursory examination of occupational health and safety issues reveals consensus among employers, legislators and professional bodies over their importance. However, there is widespread concern among those who deliver the training that there is not enough information available to companies to help them make an informed decision on what they need to do to meet their obligations.
Staying up to speed with regulations is a challenge for most businesses and health and safety managers are in for a busy time in 2007. Since June 2006 there have been new regulations on construction, asbestos, noise, vibration and working at heights and 13 new regulations are due this year.
“Requirements have changed substantially with the Safety Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and other new legislation,” admits Robert Roe, head of policy/technical services at the Health and Safety Authority (HSA). “The 2005 Act defines a competent person as one who possesses sufficient training, experience and knowledge appropriate to the nature of the work to be undertaken, and meeting this standard is a challenge for employers.”
It is not surprising, therefore, that health and safety training is seen as a more challenging brief than heretofore. “We place a huge emphasis on the competence and calibre of our trainers and instructors and finding good communicators who have the technical knowledge is often difficult,” says Mary Darlington, health & safety executive at the National Irish Safety Organisation (NISO). “Health and
safety is not a sexy subject and can be very technical, so it has to be made interesting to keep delegates happy.”
Standards are rising all the time and training providers need to keep on top of both legislation and changes in standards, says Robert Roe. “Health and safety trainers need to keep up to date on the legislation and its practical implications. For example, the construction regulations have specified that persons performing high risk tasks – such as roadworks, the operation of excavators or the erection of mobile scaffolds – must receive specific training and possess a FETAC (Further Education and
Training Awards Council) recognised award.”
Many training providers in this sector have experienced a boom in the amount of training they provide and the biggest challenge now is ensuring that course content and delivery is kept up-to-date according to Carl Anders, IBEC Health & Safety Executive.
“A move towards FÁS funding and FETAC accreditation already means providers are having to install a more formal quality management system. Employers will want training, advice and guidance that is current and relevant and will be looking to state bodies and employer representatives for approved, registered providers or recommended training providers” he explains.
“The new legislation has placed a much greater duty on employers and individual senior executives to ensure that they provide appropriate training, which means more checks on competency and content,” he adds.
Ann Marie Carroll, who has responsibility for health and safety in Chambers Ireland, agrees. “One of the key issues is ensuring that health and safety trainers are up to date with changes to safety legislation. This often has a direct impact on their own training needs to ensure that they are legally qualified to facilitate specific courses. Training has also become more industry specific, for example in relation to
environmental issues where health and safety is impacted.” The Chambers Business School has expanded its training in response to this development.
Robert Roe advises management to familiarise themselves with their own personal obligations, as employees of their company. “There is recognition of the requirement for workers to receive training. However, it is important that managers also receive training on their obligations – the 2005 Act placed
specific duties on senior managers and directors and they need to know how to comply with the law if they wish to avoid the possibility of being faced with criminal proceedings.”
Chairman of the Institution of Occupational Safety & Health (IOSH) consultancy specialist section, Declan Gibney refers to employer concerns over down time, productivity and return on investment. “One of the big challenges is ensuring that staff scheduled for training actually attend, or that their attendance
is facilitated by their line manager and day-to-day priorities do not impact on training attendance.”
Security and safety engineering consultant Tony Keane, of Keane Security & Fire Safety, sympathises. “The biggest problem is getting companies and organisations to understand that their responsibilities.
It is amazing how many firms fail to realise, for example, that they must arrange emergency evacuation and fire safety training for every member of their staff, and that includes management.”
On the positive side, he feels the 2005 Act has made it much clearer that firms must comply with a wide range of security and safety procedures as part of health & safety. “They have tended to think of First Aid and manual handling training as all that needs to be done.”
The delivery of health and safety training has become more challenging for the above reasons, but also because training courses are often not understood by those requesting them, adds Gibney. “Training can often be seen as the end result, rather than an opportunity to change practices, habits and/or cultures through learning and understanding. The need to reinforce the message through adequate supervision and corrective measures is also of vital importance if the results are to be long term and meaningful.”
Competency is a theme that Carl Anders returns to when asked about the key issues facing health and safety trainers. “This will become a bigger issue as more health and safety training comes under the banner of FETAC. There are clear concerns from employers over the actual competency and value of
training programmes that have been delivered over the last few years – in some cases they have been far too generic information-based interventions, rather than actual training, and ultimately of little value to the employer looking to satisfy their legal obligations.”
He warns that training providers should be able to demonstrate not only training competency, but also competency in the sector or enterprise they are providing the training for. “Many employers have learned from previous mistakes in hastily arranging training and have imposed clearer specifications on what skills and knowledge are required to provide certain training elements.”
While there are many responses to the question of the greatest challenge facing trainers, the question of whether there is enough information available to companies to help them make an informed decision on their health and safety training requirements draws an almost unanimous ‘no, there is not’ from
actors in the sector.
NISO acts as ‘the competent person’ for some of its members who are not large enough to justify a full time health and safety person and Mary Darlington says that while there is plenty of information out there, “wading through it and understanding how to implement it is the real challenge for all health
and safety practitioners.”
According to Ann Marie Carroll, lack of information means health and safety training is often seen as a necessary evil and not given the consideration it deserves. Declan Gibney agrees that training is frequently done for the wrong reasons. “Health and safety legislation and principles are that a hierarchical approach to risk management be taken. In this hierarchy, training is deemed to be one of the least effective solutions, along with providing safety clothing and equipment. Training can often
be recommended or demanded without adequate consideration being given to other risk controls.”
Carl Anders, is even more forthright. “Nobody wants overly prescriptive legislation, but there is still room for improvement on the current information and guidance regarding the key provisions of the 2005 Act. For all other investments in health and safety preventative measures, employers seem to have plenty of reference material and sources. Unfortunately, there just is not this level of information regarding training and many employers have had to learn from previous expensive mistakes.”
Anders suggests that employers are looking for advice and guidance in the form of briefings, training and workshops but that, without any interpretation from the HAS, it is a difficult situation where training providers haven’t got formal guidance notes to serve as reference to back up their training content.
“Again, this is leading to problems as scare stories about the provisions in the legislation are leaking out to employers. Even though most of these stories are untrue, the sheer amount of legislation that has landed on the desks of health and safety professionals – and the lack of guidance – have placed people in an awkward position in terms of the advice they can give and where to look for more assistance.”
In response, the HSA simply refers to the employer’s obligation to conduct risk assessments. “In certain areas, such as construction, manual handling, confined spaces entry or first-aid, the regulations or their guidelines are very specific in requiring particular training or qualifications,” concludes Robert Roe.
In summary, before contracting out Health & Safety Training, it is certainly more important than ever to obtain customer references from your proposed training providers so that you can discuss and compare requirements and experiences.
