In a construction environment, a key part of ensuring safety is providing the tools required to complete a task successfully. Drills and conductivity meters are one part of this, but the type of tool that often goes unnoticed until it’s needed is training.
Many work sites shift and change over time, and with it, the hazards and risks involved change to suit. Continuous and consistent health and safety training provides the techniques required to limit preventable accidents.
Being able to anticipate and identify a hazard is just as important a skill to nurture as knowing what to do in the event of an emergency. Safety training cannot be a one-off exercise; constant discussion and understanding is necessary to and those around us.
In the final blog of our National Safety Month series, we’ll be exploring why regular health and safety training is essential for specialist technicians, and the types of training our technicians undergo to ensure their own and others safety.
Risks Unique to Specialist Property Care
To understand why regular health and safety training is integral to our business, we must first recap the risks unique to the specialist property care industry.
Restricted Spaces
Whether our surveyors are diagnosing a domestic or a commercial property, a key risk is navigating restricted spaces adequately. Our surveyors regularly investigate beneath floorboards and in roof voids to fully diagnose a property maintenance issue. Each of these areas also carry their own risks, such as dust inhalation, limited entry and exit routes, and the potential for invisible hazards like toxic fumes.
Hazardous Chemicals
Our surveyors use a wide range of different chemical treatments in their work, from damp proof injection creams to fungicidal and insecticidal sprays. Exposure to these chemicals can cause skin irritation and asphyxiation if the correct protective measures aren’t in place prior to using them.
Structural Hazards
After becoming weakened from moisture ingress, woodworm damage or fungal decay, structural repairs are often necessary to restore a property’s strength. During this state of weakness, floorboards and walls can collapse, risking serious injury to our specialists if these areas aren’t braced or reinforced. These risks are also increased when working from height, such as from scaffolding.
Occupied Properties
Working safely in occupied properties is not just about protecting our specialists, but also our clients. Identifying vulnerable occupants and keeping them safe is just as important as protecting ourselves whenever we’re working in a property. Working in an occupied space also carries an increased risk, especially where members of the public and pets might access a work area accidentally if not adequately prevented from doing so.
Types of Health & Safety Training
To ensure the safety of our technicians, we employ several training programmes to both provide and improve on the necessary skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviours (SKEB) required to complete the tasks they carry out. These programmes are also often a requirement of our accreditations, which must show consistency and progress to be retained or improved after a periodic audit.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
PPE training ensures that workers can safely select, fit, use, and maintain safety gear. There is a minimum PPE standard that technicians must adhere to when working on any property, and each task also has specific additional PPE requirements relevant to the hazards involved. For example, hard hats and steel toe footwear should be used in all areas of a construction site, while face-fitted respiratory protection with filters, safety eyewear, and additional skin coverage is worn when in contact with irritants or dangerous chemicals and gases.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH)
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) is a key UK regulation that controls exposure to harmful chemicals and materials in the workplace. COSHH monitoring and controls are performed by a firm’s health and safety representative, which technicians must follow while working with these chemicals. COSHH training helps a technician to understand why we have risk assessments in place for these chemicals and the importance of following these directions. COSHH training also involves planning for emergencies, and what to do in the event of exposure.
Working at Height – PASMA and IPAF
Falls from even a short distance can cause life-changing injuries. Where possible, we complete as much work as we can from the ground. However, this is not always possible, especially in high-vaulted buildings like churches or theatres. Working at height training involves identifying safe places to work from, such as scaffolding, and using additional measures such as harnesses to reduce the distance or consequences of a fall.
Manual Handling
Manual Handling Training prepares employees with safe techniques for lifting, carrying, pushing, or pulling loads. It also provides employees with methods to reduce the impact of carrying heavier loads, such as by using specialist transport tools to move heavier loads from one location to another, reducing the risk of musculoskeletal injuries.
Equipment Training
Many injuries logged each year are the result of incorrect equipment use. Equipment training provides instructions for the use of specialist equipment, as well as how to identify a fault in it prior to starting work. Equipment training reduces preventable hazards such as cuts and lacerations caused by misuse.
Vibration Monitoring
It’s just as important to understand the magnitude of vibration each tool outputs as it is to know how to use one correctly in the first place. Vibration Monitoring teaches technicians to look for the early signs of Hand-Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS), such as poor circulation in the fingers. HAVS is a condition caused by vibrating power tools. After prolonged use, HAVS sufferers may experience debilitating pain, numbness, or reduced dexterity.
Asbestos Awareness Training – UKATA or IATP
Asbestos awareness training is a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) requirement for anyone whose work may disturb the asbestos containing materials in a building. Asbestos fibres can be freed when materials containing it become disturbed. It is a highly toxic and carcinogenic mineral, which can cause fatal lung diseases and cancers if inhaled. Asbestos awareness training is focused on correctly identifying and avoiding materials that could contain it, as well as steps to ensure it’s managed in a way that prevents the fibres from escaping.
Slips & Trips Awareness
In environments that are constantly changing, it’s important to reassess the hazards and risks involved. Slips and Trips Awareness courses help the workforce to identify the likely causes of slips within the work environment, and measures that they can take to reduce the risk of falling while working on site.
Driving Hazards
Health and Safety training doesn’t start and end at the construction site, it often begins and ends during a commute. Hazards such as extended journeys or driving while fatigued can also create the opportunity for accidents. Understanding the importance of resting every couple of hours, staying hydrated, and taking short walks to restore circulation are all necessary to preventing driving hazards while driving to or away from a property.
Toolbox Talks and Ongoing Learning
While periodic classroom-based training is essential for the continued safety of our technicians and clients, on-site training also provides an opportunity to put these lessons into practice.
One method for achieving this is the toolbox talk, a short briefing around a specialist subject. Often, these talks are given at the start of the working day, or before a specialist task. Each talk is followed by a discussion session, allowing technicians to improve their competency and understanding of a subject.
Toolbox talks can be adapted to the situation our specialists find themselves in. For example, a toolbox talk about working from height might focus specifically on domestic properties and how to access a leave a loft void safely.
They can also be adapted to the working conditions of the technicians, delivered as refreshers or weekly catch-ups, or even via email if the workforce travel to different locations. They can also be used as debriefs after an accident to share the lessons learned from a situation the technicians might have navigated on a previous day.
CPD and Industry Education
While toolbox talks and mandatory safety training help ensure our employees remain safe and competent, Timberwise also believes in sharing knowledge with the wider industry and nurturing a positive safety culture.
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Seminars allow us to support architects, surveyors, structural engineers, property managers, local authorities, and other construction professionals with specialist property care knowledge. By improving understanding of issues such as damp, timber decay, basement waterproofing and structural repairs, we can help ensure that projects are designed and managed safely from the outset.
Many property defects create health and safety implications that extend beyond the repair itself. For example, understanding the risks associated with fungal decay, structural instability, mould growth, or restricted spaces can help design professionals make informed decisions before remedial works begin.
Timberwise regularly delivers accredited CPD seminars to organisations across the UK, helping attendees better understand the technical challenges associated with specialist property care. These sessions are designed to provide practical guidance that can be applied directly to real-world projects, supporting safer buildings and better project outcomes.
By investing in education across the wider construction industry, we aim to contribute to higher standards of competence, improved decision-making and ultimately safer working environments for everyone involved in the built environment.
As Building Safety legislation continues to place greater emphasis on competence and accountability, ongoing professional development is becoming increasingly important for all construction professionals. Through training, knowledge sharing and collaboration, the industry can continue to improve safety standards for workers, clients and building occupants alike.
Conclusion
Health and safety training is not a one-time requirement that can be completed and forgotten. In specialist property care, where environments, regulations and working practices are continually evolving, maintaining competence requires ongoing learning and reinforcement.
From confined spaces and hazardous chemicals to working at height and occupied properties, the risks encountered by specialist workforce are varied and often unpredictable. Regular training provides employees with the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours needed to identify hazards, make informed decisions and respond appropriately when conditions change.
At Timberwise, this commitment to continual learning is reflected through formal qualifications, toolbox talks, refresher training, equipment competency assessments, CPD opportunities and regular communication throughout the business. These initiatives help ensure that safety remains at the forefront of every task, whether surveying a property, carrying out specialist treatments or supporting clients from the office.
Ultimately, investing in training is an investment in people. By continually developing the competence of our teams and sharing knowledge with the wider industry, Timberwise helps create safer projects, safer workplaces and safer properties for everyone involved.
FAQs
Why is Regular Health and Safety Training Important?
Regular health and safety training helps employees recognise hazards, understand safe working practices and respond appropriately to changing site conditions. Ongoing training reinforces existing knowledge, introduces new legislation and industry guidance, and helps prevent accidents caused by complacency or outdated practices.
What Health and Safety Training do Technicians Need?
training requirements depend on the work being undertaken. Common examples include PPE training, COSHH awareness, manual handling, working at height, asbestos awareness, equipment competency training, vibration monitoring, slips and trips awareness, and driving safety. Additional specialist training may be required depending on the environment and tasks involved.
What is SKEB Training?
SKEB stands for Skills, Knowledge, Experience and Behaviours. It is a framework increasingly used throughout the construction industry to assess competency. SKEB focuses not only on qualifications and technical ability, but also on practical experience and the behaviours required to work safely and professionally.
How Often Should Construction Workers Receive Safety Training?
Health and safety training should be continuous throughout a worker’s career. While some qualifications require periodic renewal, ongoing learning through toolbox talks, refresher training, CPD sessions and site-specific briefings helps ensure knowledge remains current and relevant to changing workplace conditions.
What are Toolbox Talks in Construction?
Toolbox talks are short, focused discussions covering specific health and safety topics. They are often delivered before work begins and help reinforce safe working practices, raise awareness of hazards and share lessons learned from incidents or near misses. Toolbox talks are widely used throughout the construction industry to support ongoing training and communication.
What is COSHH Training?
COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) training teaches employees how to identify, assess and control the risks associated with hazardous substances. It covers topics such as safe handling, storage, PPE requirements, emergency procedures and understanding Safety Data Sheets (SDS).
Why is CPD Important in Construction?
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) helps construction professionals maintain and expand their knowledge throughout their careers. CPD supports competence, encourages best practice and ensures professionals remain up to date with changes in legislation, standards, technology and industry guidance. For our specialists, CPD plays an important role in improving both safety and technical expertise.
