The start of the New Year is often time to look back on the previous year and celebrate all the good things that happened, but also look at how you might change and improve a few things in terms of the coming year.
Quite often New Years resolutions consider personal goals such as opportunities for potential physical and mental growth and improvement in areas such as health, fitness, more opportunities for social contact and learning.
Here at LKL we have been setting our own goals and we are encouraging you to invest in both your mental and physical well being by undertaking some Farm H&S Awareness training.
We all understand the importance of Health and safety on farms and that it should be considered as one of the essential factors of farm business management and one of the key ways of improving health and safety standards is raising awareness and encouraging good discussion about how to recognise and manage hazards and risks.
Importance Of Training And Learning
We all know the importance of training to help increase awareness of risks, teach us how to use work equipment or carry out a job safely and it's particularly important for new members of staff or when you are carrying out an work activity for the first time.
However not everyone thinks about refresher training - but it's well known that even the most experienced person can become complacent or take shortcuts particularly when you are rushing to get the job done.
You can also become over familiar with your workplace and begin to not notice issues or accept hazards that you navigate as part of your daily routine - not necessarily identifying that things could be improved to reduce the risk of accidents.
This is why refresher health and safety training can be important to help refocus and raise awareness of the hazards that are in your workplace and how you can reduce or manage them.
By undertaking refresher farm safety training it can increase your awareness of potential safety risks and help staff better identify and understand how to manage risks on the farm.
Invest In Yourself
By investing in ourselves and our learning, we are actually investing in our farm businesses as we, the staff , are our farms most valuable asset, so health and safety has to be a top priority.
During Farm safety Week in 2024 - LANTRA decided to offer 2 types of Farm Safety Awareness courses for Free.
They are easily accessible - all you have to do is register on the website and download the course - its that simple. A certificate of attendance is provided on completion.
They are: -
Non Technical Skills in Farming
This course takes about 30-40 mins. There is a quick questionnaire to be completed before you start the course which takes a couple of minutes which explores attitudes to safety around typical farm work scenarios.
It focuses on three core aspects :-
- Situational Awareness
- Decision Making
- Task Management
The course using a mixture of slides and a couple of videos - discusses the key aspects of each topic and the type of things that you should be thinking about as you approach your work activities to help you make better decisions and encourage risk assessment techniques and communication between staff.
It encourages assessment of a task so that you don't rush in, thinking carefully about the equipment you use and the competency of yourself and the team. It encourages planning and communication.
This course would certainly be worthwhile as a refresher and start the conversation about higher risk tasks around the farm and lone working etc.
You can find this course here: - Non Technical Skills in Farming (E Learning)
Agricultural Health and Safety - How to meet your legal responsibilities
This course takes between 2- 3 hours and is broken up into 8 topics. Once registered you can come stop and start the course at your own pace. It means that you can cover 1-2 topics at a time and return to progress to the next Topic another day.
Don't be put of by the course title - as it does cover a number of potential areas of known risk on the farm and recommended safety measures that should be followed.
Topics include: -
- Introduction - Introduction to Legislation & role of HSE, typical accidents and underlying causes
- Premises Safety and Work at height - (Remember no LKL contractors should be working at height and no work on roofs - see your contract and H&S induction booklet which state this)
- Risk from falling objects - including Bails
- Livestock & cattle handling
- Vehicle safety - including Quads and Telehandlers
- Children on farm
- Electrical risks - including Overhead Power Lines
- Drowning and Asphyxiation including Slurry pits
The course is a mixture of slides, short video clips and a couple of Q&A sessions.
Plenty of additional information and links to HSE guidance booklets available throughout the course to promote further discussion.
You can find this course here: - Agricultural Health and Safety (E Learning)
Here at LKL we want all LKL Farm Contractors to undertake Farm safety refresher training at least every 2 years - to help all staff to refocus their minds on potential risks and encourage good discussion about communication and management of health and safety hazards in the workplace.
Over the next few weeks we will be sending out additional information about the above courses and encourage everyone to enroll.
Fancy 'face to face' training rather than doing 'e learning' - then why not book a Farm Safety Awareness and Welfare course with our LKL Regional Manager and Trainer - James Picot.