In our experience the most common safety issues in our industry arise from manual tasks – fundamentally the things that we do every day in the course of making, lifting, moving, painting, fabricating or installing a sign. We decided to address this important safety issue head-on with two in-house group training sessions offered by our Workers Compensation insurer, QBE.
Walter Arrow, QBE trainer and Workers Comp specialist, expertly navigated us through the do’s and don’ts of manual tasks ie. something that includes any person, animal or thing that is lifted, lowered, pushed, pulled, carried, held or refrained. We also covered hand injuries, risk assessments and the benefits of ‘taking 5’ before a new task.
And at the end we enjoyed a bit of light ‘aerobics’ (see pics). We now encourage all staff to have a wiggle and a stretch every hour to keep the body supple and minimise the likelihood of injury. Jane Fonda would have been proud!