Avoid Sick Days With Manual Handling Training Courses

By Author: Owen Glover
Total Articles: 5
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Any business wants to make the most profit with the least hassle, but this can be difficult to assess because some costs incurred don’t have an obvious monetary value. If a worker is off sick, for example, you are paying someone who isn’t there. Then there is the time wasted as colleagues try to cover tasks they aren’t familiar with. When you consider that a lot of sick days are avoidable, this seems madness: manual handling training can help prevent common musculoskeletal injuries and save your company money.

The recent Labour Force Survey from the Office of National Statistics has shown that 34.4 million working days were lost last year due to musculoskeletal disorders such as bad backs, and neck and shoulder pain. A lot of these injuries were caused by the incorrect handling of heavy objects, but with proper manual handling training this type of accident can be avoided.

As well as having the potential to save companies money, training in manual handling procedures is required by law. The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations (1999) state that employees must receive health and safety training, ...
... and must be trained specifically in how to handle heavy objects, whether lifting, lowering, pushing or pulling.
Accidents with heavy objects don’t just happen at work. Although training helps avoid injuries in the workplace, we often lift heavy objects at home. Suitcases, boxes and electrical equipment are all moved around from time to time and safety is essential. Providing manual handling training at work means employees are likely to be safer at home, which also benefits the business. Accidents at home lead to time off work just as often as those that happen in the workplace.
You might be worried that the training itself will take up valuable time, but this needn’t be the case if you choose an online health and safety course. As the materials are delivered over the internet (or via CD-ROM) they can be viewed from any computer, and employees work through them at their own pace. This is much more efficient than more conventional training methods, such as attending classes out of work or inviting a trainer to give a lecture. These require much more organisation, time and expense.

Proper manual handling is actually quite simple, with many accidents arising simply because people don’t think about what they’re doing before they do it. Courses teach the LITE system, which stands for Load, Individual, Task and Environment. These are the four things that need to be considered when lifting something. Load refers to the object itself, how heavy it is, what shape it is and so on; individual refers to your own abilities, health and strength; the task is what you want to do with the object; and the environment is the area the activity is taking place in.

To get proper training for your staff, protect their health and to save your company money, look into online courses today. Many companies will give you a free trial with no obligation to buy.

For online manual handling and other health and safety courses, look no further than iHasco. Their innovative, interactive programs can be used from any computer, and you can try before you buy. Click the link to see what they have on offer.
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