Benefits Of Deploying Manual Handling Training In Modern Slavery

Manual handling training teaches workers to recognise a hazardous manual task and to work in ways that reduce strain on the body. Its real benefit is narrower than most course pages suggest. Training helps people follow safe systems of work and speak up about tasks that hurt, and it does not on its own fix a task that is badly designed.

Safe Work Australia’s model Code of Practice on hazardous manual tasks sets the order of operations. Identify the hazardous tasks, assess the risks that may contribute to a musculoskeletal disorder, then eliminate or minimise those risks. Redesigning the task, changing the layout or bringing in a mechanical aid sits above instruction, because a control that removes the hazard does not depend on someone remembering their training on a busy afternoon.

Read that way, the benefits are real and worth having:

• workers can name a hazardous task rather than accepting it as part of the job, which is what puts it into your risk process in the first place
• new starters and labour hire crews get the same baseline, which is where a lot of body stressing injuries begin
• supervisors have a shared vocabulary for correcting a technique without it becoming a personal criticism
• you have a record of what was taught and to whom, which matters if an injury is later investigated

The Code applies to a person conducting a business or undertaking, and also to those who design, manufacture, import or supply workplace equipment, and to anyone designing a workplace where manual tasks happen. Safe Work Australia notes that you should check with your regulator to find out whether the Code has legal effect in your jurisdiction, so obligations differ across states and territories. Treat this as general information rather than legal advice. The model Code of Practice on hazardous manual tasks is the primary source.

Posts tagged manual handling cover how Australian organisations run this in practice. Sentrient offers a manual handling course, a version for disability support and healthcare workers, and an ergonomics course for the task design side.