TJ’s third annual H&S training event is a success

TJ’s third annual Health and Safety Team Training Event, which took place last month, has been heralded a success. The three-day event is a great focus for the company, who hold health and safety in high regard and strive to ensure every staff member’s knowledge is kept up-to-date.

The first day of the event was held in Bristol for their drivers based in the area. Days two and three took place at Havant and South Downs College and were tailored for drivers based in the south, site operatives and machine operating staff.

The training days give an overview of the past year and how this can be carried forward into the coming year. There’s an emotive focus on health and safety to ensure staff know what could happen when health and safety is not adhered to and things go wrong. Staff received technical health and safety training, including what’s expected of them legally and as a TJ employee.

The day is broken down into sections. After an opening address, the driver training includes breakout sessions of around an hour each on: risk assessments, toolbox tasks, h&s legislation, driver competencies – best practice and legal issues such as speeding, and a practical session on carrying out vehicle checks with the opportunity to ask the assessor any questions. These sessions are a great refresher for all drivers – established or new – to remind them how things must be done and to keep their knowledge current.

The site and machine operatives event covered six main topics: quarry regulations, machinery safety and guarding, housekeeping – slips, trips and falls, manual handling, electrical isolation and machinery lock-out and risk assessments.

Staff can access the training again any time they like via the videos on TJ’s award-winning training portal so they can remind themselves of any parts of the training as and when they need to.

This training portal was one of the reasons that TJ was awarded the Mineral Products Association’s Transport for London Award in 2017 for reducing occupational road risk for their 165 drivers. Criteria for the award included showing how technology, management systems and behavioural initiatives can reduce road accidents.

Staff feedback received about the events indicated that 97.7% of attendees enjoyed the training, with 74.3% saying they learned something new. The fact that staff ‘had the opportunity to raise points’ and that the days was ‘more hands on and interactive’ were listed as highlights of the event.

TJ has a monitoring system in place to record h&s ‘near misses’, which allows staff to take heed of these near misses and learn from them to try to ensure the same things do not occur again or result in accidents.

TJ Chairman Terry Higgins said: “Health and safety is crucial in all we do at TJ. Ensuring the safety of all of our staff, customers and anyone coming into contact with a TJ service or site is of absolute importance to us. That’s why we host this event to maintain our staff’s skills and to make sure they feel confident in carrying out their duties safely.”