Inadequate Demolition Survey Leads to Asbestos Fine

Two companies were recently fined for failing to properly manage their duties relating to the disposal of asbestos. A property management firm and an asbestos surveying company were fined a total of £13,200 because they conducted an inadequate demolition survey prior to a major construction project.

Home Inspectors Southern Limited failed to identify asbestos cement and asbestos insulating board containing Chrysotile and Amosite asbestos. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) uncovered that the surveyor had no training in asbestos surveying, or any previous work experience with a qualified contractor. Home Inspectors Southern also incorrectly claimed that a non-licensed contractor could be used to remove some of the asbestos materials.

Vital Property Solutions Limited, who managed the project, failed to check that Home Inspectors Southern had the required skills, training and experience to manage the asbestos survey.

Both companies pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which places general duties on employers and the self-employed to conduct business in such a way that others are not exposed to risks.

Home Inspectors Southern was fined £8400 and Vital Property Solutions was fined £4800. The HSE inspector, speaking after the hearing, commented, “Asbestos surveyors have a duty of care to those persons who use the information they provide. The survey missed a significant amount of asbestos contaminated materials (ACMs) thus increasing the risk to workers, who would be disturbing the fabric of the buildings during the refurbishment/demolition project.

“The risk arises from workers unknowingly working on ACM, and not taking effective precautions to prevent exposure and spread of asbestos fibres. Where surveyors fall well short of the standard then HSE will take robust action.”

Health and safety training from VinciWorks

A common element in cases of health and safety breaches is a lack of training – whether it’s never provided or just not refreshed frequently enough. It’s clear that having a system for delivering essential health and safety training is vital for organisations that want to keep their employees, stakeholders and visitors safe at work.

That’s precisely what we offer at VinciWorks. Our training is virtual, so it can be delivered quickly and affordably whenever it’s required. Without the usual overheads associated with hiring venues, travelling to learning centres and catering for trainers and delegates, your essential learning becomes more sustainable. And because learning records are online, you can easily prove that mandatory training was provided.

Promoting Wellness at Work

Promoting Wellness at Work

Workplace wellness is not a new idea. Organisations have offered wellness programmes for years, but these have traditionally been focused on reducing illness, encouraging people to quit smoking, eat well, and exercise more.

The latest wave of wellness initiatives, led by giants like Google and Apple, is taking a more holistic approach to health and encouraging people to take care of their mental and emotional health as much as their physical fitness. These schemes aren’t simply about getting people to meditate during their lunch break. The focus is on creating an environment and work processes that are conducive to good health.

Why are organisations investing in their employees’ wellbeing? There seem to be a few drivers behind the latest push for wellbeing.

Retention

Happy employees are more likely to stay. If people find that their work is fulfilling, enjoyable and not damaging to their physical, mental or emotional health, then they have fewer reasons to leave. Organisations that succeed at retaining employees save money and time on recruitment, and also enjoy the advantage of retained knowledge and skills – not to mention the continuity of service and a greater sense of community.

Recruitment

Your reputation as an employer counts for a lot. And in a competitive hiring market, that reputation could be the difference between attracting the best people – or vacant seats.

Job seekers are looking for more than financial rewards. They consider the complete package, including benefits and workplace environment. If you can’t tell a positive story about the long-term wellness of your colleagues, you may lose top recruits to your rivals.

Productivity and sustainability

If your employees are healthy and happy, they are more likely to be ready for work. Conversely, people who are struggling with mental, physical or emotional health issues are likely to be distracted while at work – if not absent entirely.

By giving people the tools to maintain all aspects of their health, you can improve their chances of working effectively. It’s also important to create an environment in which all health issues can be discussed, and the connections between work and wellbeing are accepted openly.

Insurers value wellness

From a purely financial perspective, insurance companies may offer lower rates to companies that care for their employees’ wellbeing.

Has your organisation implemented a well-being programme? If not, what barriers are standing in your way?

Temporary and Agency Workers Need Health and Safety Protections

A logistics company was recently fined £373,000 after a worker suffered crush injuries while unloading a visiting lorry. An agency worker was unchaining a vehicle ramp from a delivery van when it moved forward with a chain still attached, crushing the worker between the ramp and a barrier.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the company had not adequately controlled the risks associated with the unloading ramps and the unloading procedures. Nor had they given sufficient training to workers on their role, and visiting drivers were not given adequate training on their obligations while on site.

ERIKS Industrial Services pleaded guilty to an offence under Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The HSE inspector Tim Underwood said: “This incident could have been avoided if the company had created a more detailed risk assessment and introduced a fully considered safe system of work. Removing the visiting lorry driver’s keys until the procedure was safely completed, is one such method which could have prevented such an occurrence.

“Companies have a responsibility to provide sufficient information, instruction and training to all those involved in workplace transport operations (including visiting delivery drivers), in order to control the risk of serious personal injury.”

Protecting visitors and temporary workers

This case is a reminder of the different categories of people that health and safety policies must protect. Policies and action plans often focus on employees, but companies also have a duty to protect other visitors, such as contractors, agency workers, delivery personnel and other visitors who may spend a few hours or a few minutes on your premises.

The Health and Safety Executive recommends that companies discuss health and safety issues with external contractors so that people are aware of the risks and understand the correct procedures to follow while on site.

Clearly, a challenge for any organisation is how to brief visitors on the essentials, without introducing unnecessary hurdles or reducing productivity. A risk assessment is clearly the place to start. From there, organisations can consider how best to manage the risks in a way that is appropriate.

Work with partners to address safety risks

Where serious risks exist, such as with machinery operators and manual handlers, it might make sense to liaise with the partner organisation to create a plan for briefing all drivers – including temporary and agency workers – on appropriate safety processes.

For general on-site visitors, it might be simpler to incorporate safety messages into a site induction, or attach messages to welcome emails or meeting invitations. Reception teams could point out important safety messages – or add them to the reverse of ID badges.

Regular training is always a core component of a robust health and safety regime. Organisations also have to consider how they will provide training for new and temporary workers. This can be particularly challenging in companies with regular staff turnover, or lots of transient workers. A flexible eLearning solution is one way to ensure that staff are aware of their role in staying safe, and it can be delivered quickly, conveniently and at a low cost.

Countries Worldwide Urged to Make the Workplace Safer

In a speech given in Singapore for the 21st World Congress on Safety and Health at Work, Manpower Minister Lim Swee implored countries around the world to invest more effort in reducing the number of workplace deaths and injuries.

Addressing the congress – which included around 3,500 delegates from more than 100 countries – Mr Lim outlined the approach he hoped countries would adopt to reduce fatalities and accidents to below the current average of 1.9 fatalities per 100,000 workers (in the UK this figure was 0.4 per 100,000 in 2016).

Noting that different countries cite different averages for workplace accidents and fatalities, Mr Lim expressed his hope that each would learn from the other and work together to raise the profile of occupational health and safety across the board. He reiterated the importance of instilling a mind-set of safety and accident prevention in employers around the globe, and stressed the importance of offering regular health and safety training to all employees.

In truth, and looking only at absolute numbers, the amount of workplace accidents and fatalities is higher now than it has ever been. However, this is only because the workforce has grown exponentially year on year. To reverse the trend of workplace incidents, then, would mean reducing them at a pace faster than the global workforce is growing – a hefty goal, but one Mr Lim hopes to tackle with education and training over the next decade.

How can eLearning help?

It’s essential to deliver health and safety training in an interesting and easily accessible way. All our eLearning courses include exceptional content, using advanced instructional techniques such as interactive video and gamification to create highly engaging and enjoyable learning experiences.

Here are a few strategies we employ when developing health and safety courses:

Scenario

Scenarios are an effective way to showcase real-life situations. They allow you to introduce risk-based situations and present the learners with an environment related to their job environment. For example, scenarios can be used to train employees how to act in the event of a fire.

Video

Videos make situations seem real and offer learners a clear and relatable window into safety and compliance issues. They are also a useful tool to break up text/voice-over style learning and offer users a different way to learn and retain information.

Gamification

Incorporating elements of computerised-gaming is a great way to engage and motivate learners to take part. Individuals are tasked to collect points, trophies, stars, etc. to ‘complete’ the game by answering questions or reacting correctly to scenarios.

Graphics

It’s well-known that people tend to remember more when they see than when they read; so making use of appropriate images is very important as they help learners to remember and visualise concepts.

For more information about our ‘Health and Safety Essentials’ suite of eLearning courses, feel free to contact one of our friendly team.

Your legal obligation to give employees health and safety training

Did you know that, as an employer, you have a legal duty to give employees health and safety training that covers all the risks they face at work?

Many recent health and safety breaches (and several massive fines) suggest that employers are frequently failing to properly comply with this requirement. Time after time, investigators find that employee training is inadequate, out of date, or just never delivered. Gaps in training lead to accidents, life-changing injuries, and even death.

The ‘Health and Safety at Work Act’ defines employers’ responsibilities when it comes to training, stating that employers must provide “such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is practicable, the health and safety at work of their employees”.

As you can see, this is a potentially wide-ranging requirement, depending on the nature of your employees’ work. The onus is on employers to evaluate the risks faced by employees, and then provide suitable training.

What does good health and safety training look like? This depends on the job, but general principles of good practice include:

Informative and practical. Help employees know how to work safely. Classroom sessions may not be the most effective and efficient way to drive home important messages about safety.

Contribute to a culture of safe and healthy working. Safe working should be the default mode. It may be helpful to focus on training line managers so that health and safety is valued by everyone in your organisation from the top down.

Comprehensive. Training should cover all the key risks to health and safety that your employees face.

Bespoke. It’s no good having off-the-shelf training if it doesn’t cover all the risks in your workplace.

Monitored. Health and safety training is not a one-off project. It should be part of a wider health and safety system. Training should be topped up periodically, revised over time and reviewed to ensure any new risks are covered.

For all. Your health and safety training should cover apprentices, trainees, self-employed contractors and work experience visitors.

Reviewed. Don’t just deliver training. Make sure it has worked. Monitor employees at work and check that safety practices are being adhered to.

As you can see, health and safety training should not be a box-ticking exercise. Unless you want to take risks with your employees’ health, and possibly incur a crippling fine.

Training should never be just about avoiding accidents and preventing harm. By caring for your employees, you can reduce workplace stress while demonstrating to your teams that everyone is valued and supported.

Talk to VinciWorks about creating bespoke health and safety training for your people. Our training is online, making it easy to provide to your employees wherever they work.

Work Mates Behaving Badly? What you can do to Prevent Bad Behaviour in the Workplace

Any behaviour that makes someone feel intimidated or offended at work could be classed as bullying or harassment. However, due to the ill-defined nature of bullying (there is no legal definition for the term), it can often be the case that only extreme forms of workplace violence get reported (e.g. physical attacks, verbal abuse, and threats). Managers might even dismiss accusations of bullying and harassment as simple personality-clashes or someone’s robust management ‘style’, but this attitude severely undermines the damaging effects bullying and harassment can have on the workforce – even in organisations which have implemented anti-bullying policies.

Sadly, it appears that bullying is on the rise in Britain’s workplaces; Acas recently released a report stating they receive around 20,000 calls each year relating to bullying and harassment at work, with some callers even contemplating suicide and many reporting that the experience of being bullied has caused them to develop health issues such as anxiety and depression. Acas’ report also highlights areas where bullying seems to be more prevalent, e.g. for women working in male-dominated environments, LGBT workers, and for public sector and health-care workers.

Bullying is repeatedly named as a top-five workplace hazard in polls, which begs the question: why aren’t anti-bullying policies working? We know such policies are widespread in Britain’s workplaces – they are widely recommended by Acas both as an educational tool and as a deterrent for those who would commit workplace abuse – but it remains that simply having a policy isn’t enough.

It’s up to top level management to model and promote a culture of shared responsibility, one in which employees are empowered to report unacceptable behaviour, and feel safe in the knowledge that it will be swiftly and appropriately dealt with. It’s also important to outline what constitutes workplace bullying and harassment, to show examples (particularly of more subtle instances of bullying/harassment), and allow employees to explore bullying scenarios and grey-areas in a safe environment. After all, simply putting something in writing will not change peoples’ behaviour if they lack a full understanding of what it means and how it can affect the people we work with.

So, how can VinciWorks help?

We offer a number of eLearning courses that are designed to educate members of staff and help prevent abusive behaviour in the workplace. Useful as induction tools as well as refresher training for your employees, our courses employ a number of learning techniques and devices to ensure staff stay motivated, engaged, and retentive to the key learning objectives of each module.

What courses do you offer in this area?

Introduction to Equality and Diversity – familiarise your employees with equality and diversity principles, and encourage a fair, honest, and respectful workplace.

Manager’s Guide to Equality and Diversity – Lead by example with this course especially designed for managers. Learn about your responsibilities when it comes to equality and diversity legislation and how to implement principles of equality and diversity in your day-to-day working practices.

Violence and Aggression – Approved by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) this course focuses on nurturing a safe and happy work-place, and takes a closer look at how employees can avoid violence and aggression in the workplace and protect themselves should it occur.

Code of Conduct – Equip your employees with a common framework and set of values from which they can work. A code of conduct is a reference point for members of staff, it guides behaviour and helps explain away any grey-areas they may encounter during their time with the organisation.

Additionally, we offer a range of online compliance and health and safety training courses covering a variety of important topics. All our training is developed in collaboration with subject experts and accredited by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. To view the complete collection, please click here.

Workplace stress- what’s the answer?

Stress is a big problem for people at work. And the cost to employers is enormous. A few shocking statistics summarise the size of this problem:

  • 440,000 people in the UK reported that work-related stress was making them ill (according to the Health and Safety Executive)
  • 11.7 million working days were lost in 2015/16 due to stress
  • 23.9 days are lost, on average, for every stressed employee
  • 45% of all working days lost to illness are due to stress

Clearly, stress is a huge problem for working people and their employers. But what exactly is stress, and what can employers do about it?

One definition of stress is ‘an adverse reaction to excessive pressures and demands’. Stress is felt when someone is struggling under the weight of expectations, rather than thriving under pressure. Stress can result in a wide range of symptoms, including a racing heart, palpitations, loss of appetite, trouble sleeping and depression.

Stress can be triggered by a wide range of factors, but common causes include overwork, lack of support, intimidation, bullying and a hostile working environment.

For some individuals, stress becomes a problem when things change at work, such as when their team changes, or when their workload increases. A sense of instability or unclear expectations can leave employees feeling unsupported and anxious.

Unsurprisingly, given the enormous cost of stressed employees, many organisations look for ways to reduce the risk. So what can employers do to support their teams?

A positive first step is to discuss the issues with senior managers, and ensure that they understand the causes and treatments of stress. Training is important, in part because stress can be difficult to identify, difficult to understand and difficult to treat. Senior buy-in helps ensure that a positive, supportive environment permeates down from the top.

Employers can encourage people to talk about stress and acknowledge that sometimes, situations at work can lead us to feel stressed. Employees should be given advice on coping with stress and training to help them spot potential causes. This can help people sidestep potential dangers before they become overwhelming. For example, an individual who is becoming overworked might recognise the beginnings of stress and decide to raise their concerns with their line manager. Together, the pair might agree to delegate some work to a colleague, and perhaps take a short break from work.

For some colleagues, time management training may help them manage their workload differently and prevent feeling stressed. For others, resilience training may help people to cope with stresses at work. This might mean changing their lifestyle, diet or exercise routines to help them relieve the stress they encounter at work. It might also mean taking a break from work, or turning to friends and family for support in times of stress. By learning how to become more resilient, people can gather tools to use when times are difficult.

So while stress might seem like an enormous, inescapable challenge for working people, evidence suggests that there are solutions, and that a little training can go a long way in preventing stress-related absences from work. By simply making employees feel supported, aware of the dangers of stress and capable of developing their own resilience, employers can reduce the impact of stress on their workforce.

VinciWorks provide a number of resources dedicated to identifying stress and managing stress both on an individual level and within a team.

Online Stress Management courses include:

Managing your Personal Stress
Identifying Stress in your team
Managing Stress in your team

Five new Take 5 microlearning courses released

Five new Take 5 microlearning courses released

DeltaNet have just released 5 brand new Take 5 microlearning courses;

Personal Protective Equipment

Why you should use PPE, which areas of the body are at risk, what are they at risk from and what to wear to protect them.

Checking your vehicle before driving at work

It is estimated that more than 25% of all road traffic incidents involve someone driving at work. A vehicle used at work is work equipment and employers must take steps to ensure that it is fit for purpose and safe to use, however you should make some basic checks yourself and this module outlines some of them that need to be carried out before beginning your journey

Preparing for your journey

There are a number https://vinciworks.com/of steps outlined in this module that will ensure that you are prepared for your journey; to aid your safety and that of other road-users. The steps include those that are your responsibility and those that are the responsibility of your employer.

Using big data ethically

In this course you will learn what big data is, where it comes from, what principles need to be applied to use big data ethically and how to ensure that your organisation is doing so.

Know your customer

This immersive, role playing scenario puts you in a situation where you have to make the decisions. It will demonstrate the importance of carrying out customer due diligence and highlight the risks of not doing so. You will also learn about the warning signs to look out for and questions to ask yourself to ensure that you can act with all the relevant information to hand.

What is microlearning and why should you use it?

Microlearning is training that is delivered in short bursts which users find more manageable than traditional, longer courses. By delivering the training in this way knowledge retention can be increased.

Seven new microlearning modules released

When annual refresher training time rolls around, you probably take it for granted that you’ll be hearing some of these common complaints:

  • “We’re too busy to complete mandatory training”
  • “The courses are too long and boring”
  • “We already know this information”
  • “It’s just a box ticking exercise to cover the company legally”

If any of these sound familiar, VinciWorks has the solution: Take 5 microlearning modules.

Out Take 5 modules are highly focused 5 minute bursts of learning built around behaviours that meet mandatory training requirements without taking up learners’ time, or re-treading material they’re familiar with.

Take 5s pack a lot of punch despite their small size. Each course features explanatory videos, audio narration throughout, and high levels of interaction.

Want to find out more? We have seven new Take 5 modules available now:

Money Laundering Challenge – do your employees know the lengths people will go to make laundered money look legitimate? In this challenge, learners discover how Frank the Fraudster laundered his cash, and must confiscate the laundered money by answering questions correctly.

Gifts and Hospitality Challenge – do your employees know what gifts are acceptable and what could be seen as bribery? Learners follow the story as a potential supplier offers an employee corporate seats at a football match – but can they make the right choices and keep hold of their integrity handshakes?

Setting a Secure Password – do your employees know how to set a secure password? This module shows learners how to set a strong password, keep it secure, and keep hackers at bay.

Is Your Information Secure? – your workplace contains more information security risks than your employees might realise. In this challenge, learners must collect all 8 information security shields by successfully tracking down the risks in a virtual workplace.

Don’t Get Burnt – would your employees know how to get to safety in the event of a fire? In this challenge, learners evacuate a building that’s on fire, but must make the right decisions along the way to make it out with all of their safety tokens.

Working with Dual Screens – there are numerous benefits to using more than one monitor, but failing to set them up correctly increases risk of injury. Once completed, learners will know how to set screens to the same resolution and set up differently sized screens for safe dual screen working.

Fire – Can You Handle It? – would your employees know which type of extinguisher to use if they had to fight a fire? In this challenge, learners need to choose the right extinguisher to put out all four different types of fire.

The above Take 5 modules are available now as part of Compliance Essentials and Health and Safety Essentials. Get in touch today to arrange a demo.