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In Tradies National Health Month, we are raising awareness of key workplace challenges. Here’s a nicely bundled trio of ethics and conduct digital workplace training courses: Alcohol and Other Drugs, Incident Investigation and Managing the Discipline Process
Alcohol and Other Drugs
Duties relating to drugs and alcohol are everyone's responsibility in the workplace and these WHS duties fall under the model WHS Act.
6% of yearly fatalities are caused by alcohol and other drugs. Be reminded of Safe Work Australia’s slogan for tradespeople: think safe, work safe, go home. A worksite is ‘No place for drugs and alcohol’
It could be a surprise to learn that this also extends to prescribed medicine or medications bought over-the-counter. For tradies that operate heavy machinery, that work at heights or are exposed to hazardous materials or chemicals the risk of illness or injury is high. If you are a PCBu (with a primary duty of care towards the health and safety of workers) it’s crucial for you to know what specific duties you are responsible for. Get yourself equipped to look for signs of mental illness and alcohol use disorders in your team. See Safe Work Australia/drugs and alcohol for more detail.
Alcohol and Other Drugs is a short 40-minute digital training course on the importance of safety in the workplace co-created with subject matter experts SANDAS (The South Australian Network of Drug and Alcohol Services). Learning content covers worker responsibilities in relation to alcohol consumption and other drugs that provide critical learnings to safeguard tradies. Over 8000 individual learners have rated Alcohol and Other Drugs 4.6/5 for user experience.
Managing onsite incidents
Rated 4.5/5 for learning experience Incident Investigation is suited for tradies in senior positions and provides a step by step process of how to report an incident through a workplace health and safety lens.
An incident occurs when something unforseen happens. Some incidents might be minor. Nevertheless, when an incident occurs, it must be investigated.
Consider this: it's been a long day at work, you’re tired, and you’re not fully focused on what you’re doing.
A lapse in concentration here, a cut corner there, before you know it, you’ve narrowly missed being involved in a workplace incident – or worse, you’ve been directly involved in one. A clumsily loaded pallet. Not focusing om where you’re going on a forklift. A fluid spill on the floor. An incident could be almost anything, and it could have serious repercussions.
Incidents that occur at work must be investigated. Even if it seems minor, or no-one was injured, there is the potential that serious injury or even death could occur in the same future incidents. Even a nearly missed incident needs to be investigated!
This training co-created with Wsp, that leads the way in risk management and compliance in Australia, will help PCBus ensure:
- How to identify hazards and the impact they have had on the incident under investigation
- Know who to notify and what to report when an incident occurs
- Be confident in conducting an incident investigation
Learner feedback has included many positive statements. Here are a few:
"Informative, well paced and interactive components were user friendly."
"Lots of info. Will be very useful in the future."
"Some questions had me really thinking."
The disciplinary process and how best to manage it
Designed for tradie supervisors, Managing the Discipline Process provides training on how to manage the discipline process with consistency and procedural fairness. Thomas Geer Lawyers is our SME on this topic and learning content tackles how avoid common mistakes and covers how to:
- manage the discipline process correctly by using ethical and legal efficacy,
- conduct a formal investigation,
- conduct an employee interview, and
- make a formal decision.
A recent learner commented:
"A valuable course to take if you are a people leader."
For wider reading SafeWork Vic has a Tradie Health Month website that provides work health and safety direction and support to give tradies the tools for the job to ensure physical and mental health. We particularly like the safety communication area with posters for your workplace that promote health and safety in the workplace in a variety of languages. The section on young workers is also pertinent as there are higher rates of injury recorded in this age group. These hotspots currently fall under the following industry sectors: Construction, Hospitality, manufacturing, Retail, Warehousing and Storage.
Explore our award winning flexible and innovative courses, backed by industry. Taking the hard work out of compliance. With hundreds of courses at your fingertips it may be time to take a course trial, free for 14 days covering all key workplace categories, as well as many more topics to browse in our ethics and conduct section.
We’re here to help if you need further assistance with finding what you need for your tradie workplace learning journey.
