Who Should Complete a Safety Officer Course in the Workplace?

Having a member of staff who has completed a safety officer course is essential in any workplace. In South Africa, this is necessitated by the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHS). Not only does a safety officer course provide the business with an employee well-trained in emergencies, but they also help keep the business out of potentially litigious situations due to their training in risk assessment and accident investigations.

Although the role of the safety officer is essential in the workplace, it does not make sense that every staff member looks to complete a safety office course. These in-depth courses, even when provided by us at Emcare, require two weeks of the employee's time, with many vital techniques presented during that time. This article will serve as a general guide, suggesting which employee roles in your corporate structure should look to complete this course.

Safety Officers

It may seem silly to state the evident, but the safety officer is the most critical position in any company that must have completed the safety officer course. Therefore, by all rights, the safety officer should look to complete the training before being hired or at least have completed the system by the time they begin working in that role.

However obvious the statement above may be, you may need to fully understand what a safety officer is and their role in your company. Your business may already have a safety officer, as they go by various titles. These can include a safety coordinator, safety manager, or safety specialist. Their primary purpose in any place of employment is to ensure the safety of all other staff by promoting a culture of safety practices and instilling safety systems to prevent damage to the work assesses or health-related injuries to all work staff.

To ensure that the safety officer is meeting that purpose, their job generally includes but is not limited to the following duties and responsibilities:

1. Risk Assessment - This includes highlighting potential hazards in the workplace, of which there can be many. From chemical and biological in a lab setup to ergonomic hazards in an office space.
   
   
2. Training and Education - A safety officer should be able to disseminate important safety information to the rest of the staff body in an informative and educational manner, which will help employees avoid potentially dangerous situations.
   
   
3. Compliance Monitoring - Once systems are installed in company policy, the safety officer must check on staff, ensuring they follow protocol. In this way, the safety officer can begin to develop a culture of safety in the workplace.

The Emcare safety officer course is designed to teach your next officer all these techniques, ensuring that industry experts are training your staff on the subject matter and leaving you with the peace of mind that your safety officer will be well-trained to handle most situations.

Managers and Supervisors

Although the safety officer should be the leading authority about safety issues in the workplace, it is also generally encouraged in most industries that those in positions of power, either in management or floor supervision, should also have a good understanding of safety protocols in the company. With this in mind, we at Emcare would encourage managers and supervisors to complete a safety officer course. Below let us look at just two reasons why managers partaking in this course could be so important:

• Better Safety Leadership: In a perfect world, the safety officers' position would be respected, and you would not need upper management to reinforce the safety officer's policies; the reality of the situation is that many times employees pay no heed to the protocols either due to negligence or being occupied with other concerns. This neglect can be further compounded in situations where there is no disciplinary check for those who are not compliant. In these situations, having management trained in an Emcare safety officer course will allow management to understand the necessity of safety culture in the work environment and help back up the safety officer in disciplinary matters.
  
  
• Risk Mitigation: The Emcare course offers several modules for risk management and accident investigation. Although in some corporate setups, this may be left to the safety officer, other business management may oversee the safety officer's work and make management decisions based on the situation. Therefore having control well trained to understand these situations will help the business make better decisions.
  

Human Resources Personnel

The last group this article wants to highlight that would benefit significantly from a safety course is personnel working in the human resources department. Human resources is a department expressly set up to handle issues and standard of care of employees in business space. Along with the safety officer and management, the safety officer course allows human resource employees to help foster a safer work environment but also helps them better care for the general employee populous. Let us look at some of the other reasons why HR employees should be encouraged to complete a safety officer course:

• Understanding Safety Regulation: As mentioned above, the primary responsibility of HR staff is to take care of other employees' wellbeing. This includes the safety of the business premises. By completing a course with Emcare, HR will better understand best practices regarding safety protocol and be able to implement it more comprehensively.
  
  
• Safety programme development: In the first section, we discussed how safety officers should be responsible for developing safety protocols in the workplace and then mentioned how managers should look to support safety officers from a disciplinary standpoint. However, by having HR staff who have completed a safety officer course, you will have a team who can support your safety officers from a more personal and human approach, helping staff to understand the importance of safety in the workplace through processes like counselling or one on one meetings.
  

The Safety Officer Course and Your Staff

In this article, we highlighted three specific fields within your staff body that should either have already completed a safety officer course or should be encouraged to complete one. In the same way that this article introduced the system by saying not all staff should have to complete it, it is also true that having key personnel complete the course will only help improve and strengthen the safety culture in your workplace. So don't hesitate to get your staff on an Emcare safety officer today and watch as your work becomes safer!