Inside this issue...

-    Will your employee know what to do if an accident happened in your workplace today?
-    A quick calculation of costs to send your employee on safety training...
-    Let’s talk about your risk assessment...
-    Recruit your employees to conduct risk assessments!
-    We’ll let you know if there are any changes...
-    It’s cheaper, but how can I ensure it’s better?

Dear health and safety professional,

You’re committed to promoting health and safety in your company. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have signed up to receive this bulletin, with its daily tips and tools to keep you and your employees safe.
Do you know what to do if an accident happens in your workplace today?

Now, I would like to ask you a similar question:

Will your employees know what to do if an accident happened in your workplace today?

I’m sure the answer is yes. But then my next question to you would be, how do you guarantee they can answer yes?

Because you know safety is a group effort. Which is why you’ve made certain your employees have access to the best safety training around. You’ve sent them off on courses, brought in external consultants, paid for their attendance at industry seminars, all with the intention that they’ll continue to receive tip-top training to keep them and everyone else in your company protected from risk.

But how much is this costing you? You can’t put a price on safety, but you can certainly put a price on the training you have and make available to ensure employee safety.

We chatted about the dreaded (but necessary) visits the Department of Labour inspectors pay us. Their aim is to ensure we, and our company practices, are complying with the safety standards laid out in the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA). Section 8.1 requires that you as the employer must provide a healthy and safe working environment for your employees. Section 14 states that your employees must take reasonable care for the health and safety of themselves and of anyone who may be affected or injured by his acts or omissions.

This means you and your employees must work together to promote and maintain safety in your company. The best collaboration is through training – with your risk assessment you’ll decide what safety measures to implement, and by educating your employees, you guarantee the whole company knows what to do to minimise the hazards and risks.

Let’s talk about your risk assessment...

You must identify hazards and assess risks in your company. It’s a legal requirement. You also have to make sure you choose the correct type of assessment.

Conducting a hazard identification and risk assessment process (HIRA) will help you:

1.    Recognise and control hazards and exposures in the workplace.

2.    Create awareness among employees. Use it as a training tool as well!

3.    Set risk management standards, based on acceptable safe practices and legal requirements.

4.    Reduce incidents in the workplace.

5.    Save costs by being proactive instead of reactive.

You might believe incidents happen because of employee mistakes and negligence but the fact is most incidents in the workplace occur because of insufficient management controls.

Prevent the majority of incidents in the workplace through the implementation of risk management systems like training, inspections, work procedures, employee fitness, planned maintenance of equipment and structures, and ensuring sufficient and competent supervision.

A HIRA process is proactive. It’s more cost effective to complete a HIRA process and implement a risk management system than to have an incident on site and only then decide to create one.

You’ll conduct a risk assessment right at the start of your business. If you’re lucky, your company won’t only survive, but thrive, which means your activities and productivity will grow. This in turn means your original assessment of the risks might be out-of-date. You’ll need to conduct periodic risk assessments to monitor how the risks have changed, and what additional measures you’ll need to introduce to make certain you’re consistently meeting the demands of hazard prevention and protect your employees.

Recruit your employees to conduct risk assessments!

Practically speaking, you’re not going to be able to run around to every section of your business and conduct the thorough risk assessment each area requires, and deserves.
What you can do is train your employees to conduct their own intermittent risk assessments.

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Can you answer all these questions?

  Is my first aid kit complete?
  How often am I supposed to clean my canteen?
What should I include in my daily forklift inspection?
Does it matter if the hooter on my delivery vehicle isn’t working?
 I only have one toilet for every 30 employees. Is this enough?

Click here to find the answers

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The risk assessment training module to educate every employee in less than a day

With our training expert we’ve put together a risk assessment training module, together with four other training modules for you to adapt and use to suit your company’s unique safety needs.
You could have access to the best safety training, not just on risk assessment, and never have to pay another training consultant again!

Let’s do a quick calculation of costs to send an employee on safety training...

You’ve recently recruited three new employees. You need them to know exactly what to do in case a fire breaks out in their division. From an Internet search you find a company willing to send someone to offer in-house fire safety training at around R700 a person. This means you’ll have to pay R2 100 to get all three employees up-to-speed. And this doesn’t include the money you’ll have to fork out for any other new employees you’ll have to train in the future.

I can offer you comprehensive fire safety training, and it’ll cost you less than R200, and you’ll only have to pay this once – even though you’ll be able to use the training as often as you like, for as many employees as you need it for, now and in the future.

Your fire safety training module will give you the following:

·         A ready-made Power Point presentation, to project or print.

·         A facilitator manual to guide your in-house trainer.

·         A trainee manual with trainee notes to take with at the end of the session.

·         A questionnaire to assess how much the delegate has learnt.

·         An answer sheet to mark each trainee test.

·         A certificate of completion if your employee successfully completes the training.

·         The legal requirements for the training session.

You’ll be able to use the material as often as you need, whether you’re training two or twenty employees.
We’ll let you know if there are any changes...

If the Department of Labour decides to change any requirements for training, we’ll send them to you. This update service is yours every six to eight weeks. You can cancel this at any time, although if you want your training modules to continue to be current and compliant, I would advise you to keep subscribing to it – it still won’t cost as much as you’d pay an external consultant. It’s only R2.97 a page, and doesn’t only comprise updates to the training material you already have. Each update will also include NEW training modules.

Your original Health and Safety Training Manual comes with five training topics. Fire safety and risk assessments are just 2 of them. You’ll also receive the above material for:

·         First aider responsibilities: What each appointed first aider must know and do during an incident or emergency

·         How to properly elect health and safety representatives: Nominate, elect and appoint the best representatives for the position

·         Induction training: Ensure every employee starts on the correct health and safety foot

You’ll only have to pay R995 for all five training sessions – that’s less than R200 per training module.

Your Health and Safety Training Manual service also includes:

·         An easy-to-follow format, with step-by-step instructions to ensure there’s no room for misunderstanding.

·         A H&S Helpdesk that answers your need-to-know, urgent queries with a turnaround time of no longer than 72 hours.

·         Everything is referenced to the OHSA, so you’ll always be legally compliant.

·         Your essential Health and Safety 101, a booklet which covers the health and safety basics of the included training topics.

·         A daily e-bulletin, with the latest HSE news, information, tips and tools to fully apply health and safety in your business.

·         Access to an online archive of everything we’ve published in the Manual in case you’ve mislaid your hard copy.

It’s cheaper, but how can I ensure it’s better?

I can understand if you’re asking yourself this question. So I’m offering you a chance to see how much time and money the Health and Safety Training Manual can save you. I’m going to give you 14 days to test the training material on your employees. If you’d prefer to continue paying external consultants, simply send the manual back in the original packaging. If you know the training material can be of use to you, pay the enclosed invoice.

It’s that simple! I can’t wait to hear from you on how it’s helping you and your staff drive health and safety – and at a fraction of the original cost!

Your partner in safety,

Kerusha Narothan
Managing Editor: Health and Safety Training Manual

P.S. Remember: R200 to train every employee from this point forward versus R700 to train only ONE...