Why provide workplace safety training?
- To ensure the people who work for you can do so safely and without risk to their health
- Because the law requires it!
- To develop an awesome safety culture, where working safely is second nature to everyone
Good training will help make your people capable when it comes to safety which in turn helps your business avoid the stress which comes with worksite accidents and injuries – stress that could be personal to workers and their families, financial to your business, or things like reduced productivity & poor quality of goods or service from demotivated staff who feel unsafe.
What if someone is a contractor or self-employed?
Even when a person working for you is considered self-employed or a contractor for finance/tax purposes, the law often considers them your employee when it comes to health and safety! So YOU are expected to make sure they have appropriate training and to do what it takes to protect them.
So who needs workplace safety training?
You, your managers or supervisors, your staff, your contractors… everyone!
Whether you are an employer or self-employed, are you sure that you’re up to date with how to identify the hazards and control the risks from your work? Do you know what’s expected of you and from your staff/employees/contractors? For example if someone is driving as part of their employment with you, then you are responsible for making sure they do so safely. If you don’t know these things, you might want to get yourself some training!
If you have the kind of business where there are managers or supervisors, you need to be providing direction. Do they know what you expect when it comes to workplace safety and are they aware of the deliverables? You need to understand where managers fit in and how they are expected to manage safety at work. They may well need training in the specific hazards of your worksite/processes and how you expect risks to be controlled.
Everyone working for you (even the contractors/self-employed staff) needs to be able to do so safely. This is where things like Occupational First Aid, WHMIS, TDG and many specialised courses come in. The staff need to know about safety laws/regulations and how to implement them at your worksite. Of course, they also need to know who they report concerns to and how these concerns will be dealt with. 
Who might need extra safety training?
You know your staff better than we do! Consider these groups of workers when you’re developing your training plan (you do have a training plan, right?):
- Contractors – they may not know your worksite(s) or processes as well as regular staff
- New Hires – will need to make sure their training is up to date and may need site specific induction training.
- People changing jobs, or who undertake a lot of different roles for the organisation
- Youth – especially if they are also inexperienced in your business/industry
- Safety Reps – basically need to know the safety aspects of every process
Follow these steps to help you decide who needs what training.
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