Damon Peterson is the Director of Training for Osteopaths For Industry, and a keen believer in the importance of maintaining programmes and initiatives relating to improving awareness in manual handling.
“There are many cost effective ways of maintaining training initiatives and it is my opinion that these are as important as the initial training. In many cases, we are trying to change poor manual handling & postural habits which have been adopted over a lifetime. Without re-enforcement through on-going support and reminders, the good work of skills-training will diminish over time. In short, this ensures the continual practice of bad learnt behaviours.”
“Maintaining on-going education throughout your workforce is imperative, but how should you go about doing this? What we have found at OFI is that ‘one tool does not fit all’. Every company or organisation is unique in the way that they approach training.”
“The rapid pace of internet technology over the last few years, has brought with it some amazing advances in on-line education & assessment packages. The great thing about on-line education is that it is so adaptable – we are able to develop exactly what a client wants. Familiarity with equipment and real-world techniques is extremely beneficial. Over the last two years OFI have been able to build exceptional bespoke ‘maintenance tools’.”
CASE STUDY: Guildford Borough Council
We were asked by the Refuse & Recycling department of Guildford Council to develop an on-line education tool that would assist their in-house Manual Handling Champions with ‘refresher training’. The tool had to be bespoke to their operation. We visited their site and were able to listen and speak directly to the front-line staff. We were able to film at their site, using their employees and their equipment.
The delivered product was an on-line ‘library’ of instructional video tutorials that their in-house Manual Handling Champions were able to use on a regular basis in training sessions or whenever they see that an operatives technique is slipping. This is backed up with messages of the ‘why’ behind the ‘how’ from our expert team of osteopaths and physiotherapists, in easy to understand, jargon free language.
