Are you Health and Safety ready?

Face-to-face health and safety training will be available again this new academic year, with a wide range of courses now available to book.

Health and safety training might sound like a chore, but it offers many more benefits than simply meeting legal requirements, including:

• building a positive workplace culture by equipping colleagues with handy new skills and knowledge to use at work and in their personal lives.
• supporting professional development by helping colleagues take on responsibilities such as fire warden roles.
• filling skills gaps in teams to ensure colleagues can carry out tasks efficiently and to a high standard, and that there is cover during absences.
• avoiding accidents, injuries and ill health, which can have a big impact on colleagues and are costly to resolve.

Training is arranged by our Health and Safety Services team. It can be easily fitted around your existing commitments and is usually free if delivered by Health and Safety Services colleagues.

As well as face-to-face sessions, there are many online courses on UoRLearn that can be completed on demand at a time that is convenient for you.

Booking Health and Safety training

A new Health and Safety training webpage lists all courses available to colleagues through the coming year. To book, click on the course title and register through UoRLearn.

Courses include role-specific training, such as laser safety, food safety and hygiene, asbestos awareness and safe driver training.

Other courses are useful for all staff, such as manual handling – which almost all colleagues do in some form – first aid, using fire extinguishers, and completing risk assessments.

Support for managers

Managers are encouraged to assess the needs of their teams to identify any skills gaps that can be addressed through training, and any refresher training needed.

A new training matrix tool has been developed by Health and Safety Services to help with this. It allows managers to record and keep track of all training completed by members of their teams in a simple spreadsheet.

The training matrix template can be found on the Training Needs webpage, along with guidance on assessing training requirements in your teams, inductions required for all colleagues, and good practice around risk assessments.

Contact the Health and Safety Services inquiry desk on safety@reading.ac.uk with any questions.