The Impact Of A Safety Officer Course

Who oversees safety at your workplace? Well, if nobody has completed a safety officer course, your place of employment may not have someone to fulfill this important need. Unfortunately, this leaves your job open to unhandled emergencies and may be against the law. For example, under the Occupational Health and Safety Act guidelines in South Africa, at least one staff member for every fifty must be designated as a health and safety officer, which they are only eligible for after completing a safety officer course.

At EMCARE, we believe it is not just about the situation’s legality but that putting staff through a safety officer course will develop a culture of safety at your workplace. Safety culture is a shared set of values, attitudes, and behaviours prioritising safety and risk management. So in this article, let us look at what will be taught in the course and how it could help develop that safety culture.

Increased Awareness Of Safety Risk

One of the key modules you will be trained and assessed on with our safety officer course at Emmes is the RISK assessment process. So what is RISK assessment? It is the procedure by which you:

• Identify hazards and other risk factors.
  
  
• Analyse and evaluate the severity and danger risk of the hazard identified.
  
  
• Determine the best possible solution for overcoming or controlling the hazard in the safest way possible.

RISK assessment should not only be done when an emergency is already underway but should also be conducted at regular intervals, allowing the safety officer to identify potential risks in the future, leading to safer work. Furthermore, suppose the safety officer conducts regular RISK testing and reports their findings to the site employees. In that case, the chance that all employees will look out for potentially harmful and dangerous situations or hazards will be significantly increased. In this way, the safety officer course has impacted the safety officers’ knowledge of risk and improved the workplace’s safety culture.

Improved Compliance

Another area in which a safety officer course will significantly impact the safety culture of a workplace is compliance. As mentioned in the introduction of this article, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OHS) dictates that there should always be a safety officer on-site. However, as with any act, it lays out other safety terms your site must follow to comply with South African safety legislation. These may include but are not limited to:

• Have at least one staff member, the safety officer or another staff member with accredited first aid training.
  
  
• Having a safe area in which first aid can be conducted.
  
  
• That the site be furnished with safety equipment in case of an emergency
  
  
• That all safety equipment be easily accessible by all members of staff
  
  
• In environments where hazardous materials are commonplace, the site follows industry standard best practices.

Although compliance can seem daunting, EMCARE has you covered. The above-mentioned matters are covered in the safety officer course through specific modules on being a SHE representative and legal liability. In addition, safety officers will receive an OHS Supervisor certificate and a Safety Officer certificate through this course. Having a staff member so well trained will improve your business’s chances of being 100% compliant. In addition, putting safety structures in place to meet compliance will directly impact the safety culture of a workplace.

Reduced Incidents And Accidents

Even though you are being compliant with OHS legislation and having staff perform regular RISK assessments, there is always a chance that incidents or accidents outside your control may occur. These can physically and mentally damage staff members, resulting in lower staff morale and turnover in the worst-case scenario. This is why it is essential that even when you cannot prevent all incidents and accidents, you attempt to reduce the chance of them happening. Your safety officer who has undergone their safety officer course at EMCARE will already be trained in reducing accidents through the accidents and incidents investigations module. Some of the ways in which your safety officer will seek to reduce the risk of accidents well improving the safety culture of a workplace are as follows:

• Through education By holding health and safety lectures for staff members, your safety officer will explain how specific dangerous incidents may occur and how to minimise damage if they happen. But also teaching staff how to live and maintain healthier lifestyles will also reduce health-based accidents.
  
  
• Through training: Your safety officer will be well-trained in first aid procedures and using first aid equipment. Disseminating this knowledge through practical training sessions will increase the number of on-site employees who can assist in emergencies.
  
  
• Through discussion: Having a staff member who has undergone a safety officer course and holds a safety officer certificate will provide employees with answers regarding health and safety. Workers will have a qualified co-worker to talk to about their concerns or curiosities, improving relationships around safety in the workplace.
  

Improved Emergency Response

During their two-week course, the safety officer will also be trained in emergency response in several modules. These include the following:

• First aid levels 1-3
  
  
• Basic firefighting
  
  
• Emergency Evacuation

These three modules will be compulsory and prepare your security officer for most eventualities. In addition, a training module on handling hazardous materials for workplaces that work in more chemically dangerous environments is also offered to those doing the course. But having only one employee ready to handle an emergency does not make a culture. It will be up to the security officer to relay this information throughout the workplace.

EMCARE: Nurture A Culture Of Safety

In this article, we have looked at how safety officer training offers certain employees the opportunity to learn how to manage dangerous situations in the workplace and the broader impact this can have on the entire business. So as a responsible employer, make sure to visit EMCARE today, start a safety officer course and spread a culture of safety throughout the workplace.