How training can be beneficial to safety in the workplace – IQA Townsville/Cairns

How training can be beneficial to safety in the workplace – IQA Townsville/Cairns

11/04/2019

On April 19, WSC Business Development Executive and Trainer Jared Erker, addressed the Institute of Quarrying Australia’s (IQA) Safety and Health Seminar held in Cairns and Townsville.

IQA is focussed on supporting ongoing education to the surface mineral extractive and processing industries and its members include geologists, surveyors, engineers, production managers, quarry and site managers, commercial and financial managers and health and safety officers/inspectors.

WorkSafe Connect was invited to speak at this annual seminar and was asked to focus on the key question - “The Essence of Training - How training can be beneficial to safety in the workplace”.

In line with WorkSafe Connect’s own values as a service provider, our response centred around the key themes of Performance, Innovation, and Value. In what was a facilitated session open to discussion, some of the key questions discussed and items raised as part of the seminar are outlined below:

  • Who is satisfied with the training (internal or external) that is currently conducted in your workplace?
  • Who believes their external provider understands your business?
  • Who believes that training is only conducted to comply with compliance or legal requirements?
  • Is it time to conduct a training health check?

With the key questions above discussed as a wider group the core of the seminar focussed on how education, understanding, knowledge transfer and feedback can be beneficial to safety in the workplace.

From WorkSafe Connect’s perspective, most critical to this equation is how people are educated, how we ensure employees understand, how knowledge is transferred and how feedback is delivered.

Accordingly, it was well accepted by the group that while training is generally beneficial to safety, the quality of the outcome is dependent upon how is the training/education delivered. On this front a number of key factors were examined in greater detail and these included questions and discussions including the following:

  • What does your Training Platform look like – from face to face, internal training, external training, e-learning, blended learning, toolbox talks, etc.
  • Like everything in life it seems that there is more selection than ever before in terms of how, when and where information can be delivered
  • WorkSafe Connect’s recommendation is simply to identify the platform that works best for each organisation
  • As part of identifying any barriers to success, organisations’ need to take into account demographics of employees, skill sets, culture, logistics, etc
  • Do not be afraid to ask a colleague in another organisation what they do or alternatively if your external training partner is not getting to know your business and how you operate so that they can put forward suggestions – are you really getting a return on that investment.

WorkSafe Connect thanks IQA for the opportunity to present to its members and guests at both the Cairns and Townsville annual seminars.

If you would like to discuss any of the aspects of our presentation above in more detail then please do not hesitate to get in touch with Jared and the team.

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