What Is Manual Handling Training

What is manual handling training? It teaches workers to recognise and reduce the risk of injury from lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, carrying and holding.

What surprises people is how little of a good course is about lifting technique. Technique matters, and on its own it is one of the weakest controls available. A worker with perfect posture lifting an awkward load forty times a shift will still be injured.

The stronger content covers the things that can actually be changed. The weight and shape of the load. The height it starts and finishes at. How often the task repeats. Whether there is room to turn. Whether equipment exists and is close enough to bother using.

Training that only teaches bending puts the whole burden on the worker.

Safe Work Australia publishes the model code on hazardous manual tasks. This is general information rather than legal advice.

See Sentrient’s manual handling course and work health and safety course.