Monthly Archives: October 2016

General Safety Issues

Check These Things before Letting Tradesmen Walk into Your House

Check These Things before Letting Tradesmen Walk into Your House

The old saying “Buyer beware!” is important to remember when you need work done in your home. You are the one responsible for vetting, hiring and making sure you get a quality product or service before you’ve paid your bill. Contractors who do work on your home can put a lien on it if you don’t pay the bill, so the best option is to try to make sure the person you hire is going to do what you’ve asked them to do in the time you’ve allotted for the job. If you’re not sure how to properly screen tradesmen that walk through your door, read up on these five ways to get started before you’ve signed the actual contract.

5 Ways to Screen and Vet Tradesmen

When you need to call a commercial plumber in Sydney right away, you should already have someone in mind who you’ve screened ahead of time. Any professional that will be doing work in your home should go through a careful screening process, which takes time. Thus, get those contact numbers ahead of time by checking out your local tradesmen before you actually have an emergency. You need to find out:

1. If They’re Insured – People who work in your home can also cause fires, have an accident, or just do damage to the home during the course of their work. It doesn’t matter if you are having a roof replaced or your windows cleaned. You need to be sure they have their own insurance that covers them as well as any damage to the property, in case that happens. You don’t want to be stuck for the bill for something that was not under your control.

2. Referrals – Check out local referrals from your neighbors and even third party online sites that deal with tradesmen in your area. Local reviews on online forums can help you decide ahead of time whether someone has good customer service, how they deal with the public, and the quality of their work. It also lets you know if you can trust them or not.

3. Get a Contract – If you have a lawyer, have them review it. If not, read carefully to know ahead of time what you will be signing and how it obligates you to pay, whether the work is done shoddily or late. You should have some way to get out of a contract where the tradesmen do not hold up their end of the bargain. The contract will also indicate any liens that might go on the house to secure payment for the work done.

4. Professional Reputation – Is this tradesman in good standing with their certifying organization? How long have they been in business? You don’t want to just hire someone who is off the street, or new, who can’t prove they know what they’re doing. They should have some sort of certifying paperwork or be a member of a professional organization within their trade.

5. Their Payment Policies – Tradesman differ in how they accept payment. Some will accept half before they start a job and half on completion. Others wait until the job is fully done to take payment. Some take some form of credit, but not all. Some will offer discounts for new customers or those that have given them a paid referral. You can even get a bulk deal for a year-round attention to the home, as a maintenance package, that you either pay monthly or yearly.

Ergonomics, General Safety Issues

Six Advantages to Manual Handling Training for Employees

Six Advantages to Manual Handling Training for Employees

Manual Handling Training looks to ‘prevent’ workplace injuries that can be endured when competing tasks such as Manual Handling.
Using method ‘prevention is better than cure’, we will outline 6 better ways of Manual Handling that will improve your employee’s knowledge, training and experience of good safe practice within the workplace. This will help to reduce and hopefully prevent any further injuries as a result of poor Manual Handling training.

To learn from the following 6 benefits to manual handling training for your employees; sit-up straight, make sure your back is stretched and the lights in your room are lit well enough for reading. Once you have completed those steps, please begin the 6 advantages to Manual Handling Training for Employees:

1) Raises Awareness

One of the biggest mistakes that an individual tasked with manual handling tasks make is to have a poor awareness of the risks associated to manual handling and the injuries that they may incur as a result of poor form and practice.

Manual Handling Training will raise awareness to your employees to the possible risks and dangers directly related to Manual Handling, heightening the importance of good practice within your employees and bettering their understanding of the potential outcomes if practices are ignored and Manual Handling techniques are not employed. Raising Awareness is not a stand-alone practice that will ensure good Manual Handling practice is met and implemented within their work, regularly!

2) Good Practice

An excellent outcome of Manual Handling Training is the understanding and learning of form and good practice. Manual Handling instructors will provide employees with the knowledge of best, safe and most effective practice. By understanding the best method to carry out Manual Handling, employees should understand the opposites; bad practice.

By teaching an understanding of the differences of good and bad Manual Handling, employees may be able to start implementing good practice techniques within their own work.

3) Employees in their Environment

One of the most valuable Manual Handling Training practices is to host the course on-site, within the environment employees will be using their training on a daily/ frequent basis. This method helps to cement the knowledge accrued within their own working environment rather than needing to ‘mentally’ envisage using the taught Manual Handling techniques at their own workplace (which may not have an identical layout, many variables can enter the training process etc.)

4) Teaching Employees How to Use Mechanical Aids

An extremely positive outcome of Manual Handling Training courses on-site is to enable the instructor to show the intended and correct use of Mechanical Aids within their own working environment to ensure employee safety when using such machines. Typically, employees using mechanical aids will have already been briefed and understood the additional safety requirements necessary to operating those particular machines.

By teaching employees on-site, best practice techniques can be ensured to be passed on and understood. Teaching employees within their own environment has an instrumental impact on the effectiveness of Manual Handling Training for employees, this is heighten when Mechinical Aids are involved within the process.

5) Learning through Experience

For employees, learning through experience in their workplace may be a critical aspect to bettering their understanding of the best work practices/ techniques within their own work environment – improving confidence.

Due to the inclusiveness of learning from experience, many employees may be able to provide insight into their past methods and techniques which have now been corrected. This level of teaching may be highly beneficial to individuals.

In addition, employees that have picked up and developed bad habits which are translating into their daily work practices have a chance to ‘refresh’ their understanding in a learning environment with an expert which should help to improve their abilities to fulfil the role and improve the safety of their work.

6) Promotes a Healthy Workforce

One of the most under-estimated benefits from Manual Handling Training for Employees is the promotion of a safer, healthier and happier workforce with a greater understanding of the roles and jobs they are to fulfil.

It has been widely cited that a healthy workforce has benefits on productivity. Manual Handling Training promotes this by teaching good, efficient and safe practice within the workplace.

For your business to benefit from Manual Handling Training, please visit our website at www.ofi.co.uk.