Manual Handling Training

Advantage Injury Management Services is highly experienced in the provision of manual handling training services. Injuries as a result of poor manual handling contribute to significant business costs for Queensland companies each year. Technological advancements, changing workplace processes and staff turnover can put companies at increased risk of manual handling injuries if training does not keep up with these changes.

Manual handling training, as the name suggests, is training provided to employees regarding safe working postures and safe execution of manual tasks. It is commonly thought that manual handling is “safe lifting”, however this is not the case. Manual handling encompasses all physical tasks that your employees may need to complete during that work duties, for example standing to operate machinery, sustained grasping of a power tool, pulling a pallet jack to name but a few.

Our manual handling training is provided by qualified and experienced occupational therapists and/or physiotherapists. The training is usually 1 to 1.5 hours in duration, however this may vary depending on the size of the group and requirements of the training. Advantage Injury Management Services will never provide a ‘one size fits all training’, with all manual handling training tailored specifically to your industry, work processes and with consideration to any past injuries.

Advantage Injury Management Services has extensive experience providing manual handling training in a wide range of industries including: aged care, nursing, manufacturing, hospitality, building and construction, and retail.

Why provide manual handling training?

The main reason Advantage Injury Management Services recommends manual handling training is to educate your staff regarding safe manual handling, and consequently minimize the risk of manual handling injuries. Providing regular manual handling training to your staff will also:

Provide confidence regarding safe work postures and work procedures.
Improve work skills and efficiency.
Help identify manual handling risks in the work place.
Help identify workers at risk of injury.

What does Advantage Injury Management Services manual handling training involve?

We believe that manual handling training needs to be practical and hands-on, for workers to gain any benefit from the training. In our experience, manual handling training that is only explained verbally or watched on a screen will not achieve any injury risk reduction, or see staff implement safe manual handling strategies in the workplace.

Therefore, we recommend:

Manual handling training be completed at your workplace, in standard working conditions, and using your equipment and processes.
We spend majority of the training session performing normal work tasks, and demonstrating how to perform them with attention to safe manual handling.
We ensure all staff participate in demonstration and completion of manual handling tasks. This allows us to assess your staff capacities, as well as correcting their postures and manual handling. We will report back to you any staff who are unable to complete safe manual handling or those who require further training.
We encourage problem solving of difficult tasks during the training session. In our experience staff are more likely to implement safe manual handling when they take ownership over the problem and solution.

When to use manual handling training?

We recommend including manual handling training in all inductions.
Manual handling training should be reviewed every 6 to 12 months.
On implementation of new work procedures or new equipment.