A paper from the Heads of Workplace Safety Authorities (HWSA) has reported important shortcomings in the manual handling training available to Australian workers.
The paper outlined how WHS regulators will consider the compliance status of ‘how to lift’ training, and why these training programs are not effective for managing hazardous manual tasks at work.
Musculoskeletal disorders are caused by exposure to a range of physical and psychosocial hazards at work, and prevention approaches implemented within workplace settings are often overly simplistic, focusing on worker behaviour and therefore misaligned to the complex nature of musculoskeletal disorders.
Also, providing ‘how to lift’ training does not prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders and does not change any of the hazardous manual task risk factors that workers are exposed to. It also doesn’t address the source of the musculoskeletal disorder risk, like:
- the design and layout of the work area
- the systems of work used
- physical and psychosocial risk factors
- workplace environmental conditions
- the characteristics of the load being handled
- things used in the hazardous manual task (e.g. tools and equipment).
Some important steps for employers were outlined in the paper, including:
- manage the risk of MSDs associated with hazardous manual tasks by using a risk management approach
- consult with workers when identifying hazards, assessing risks and developing, implementing, maintaining, reviewing and revising control measures
- identify hazardous manual tasks in their workplace and implement suitable control measures, in line with the hierarchy of control, before providing training to workers in the type of control measures implemented.
- ensure that hazardous manual task information, training and instruction provided to a worker is suitable and adequate.
“Industry, business, unions, health and safety professionals and training providers should not promote, provide or use ‘how to lift’ training as a sole or primary strategy to meet legislative requirements or to control hazardous manual task risks,” the report said.
“Instead, duty holders should design the work to be safe in the first place, adhere to the hierarchy of controls and provide suitable and adequate training to workers.”
The position paper was developed by an HWSA working party whose membership includes Comcare, SafeWork NSW, SafeWork SA, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, WorkSafe Tasmania, WorkSafe Victoria, WorkSafe WA and WorkSafe New Zealand.
Read the paper here.
*This article was provided for the benefit of the Workplace Health and Safety profession and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Institute of Health & Safety.