Training helps keep everyone on the farm safe says New Zealand's leading Rural Consultants for AgSafe New Zealand Ltd.

Regular and accurate training is key in keeping everyone on your farm safe says New Zealand’s leading farm consultants, AgSafe NZ.

“As an employer you must have a training process in place or supervise employees so they can do their work in a safe way,” says Jim Findlay, Rural Consultant for AgSafe New Zealand Ltd.

The employer or managers of the workplace have a responsibility to inform people doing work about the hazards of the work and what actions and precautions they need to do to stay safe in a rural work environment.

A good way to communicate this is to get a one of your skilled workers to closely oversee new or untrained employees until they can work safely on their own.

In particular young workers, new employees, people doing new or different work or people returning to work after a long absence are at a much higher risk of being injured or causing an accident.

“Consider providing ‘refresher’ training courses to these workers to get them up to speed so they can perform their work tasks in a safe way,” adds Jim.

Training gives people a way to share knowledge and develop skills. It can also help change behaviour and improve health and safety throughout the workplace.

A farm training programme will need to include the following aspects:

• An induction to show new employees all around the farm and tell them about it’s hazards and safety processes.
• Look at what skills, knowledge or abilities employees will need to accomplish particular tasks on the farm.
• Make available ways to train and upskill employees. You can do this by using external training providers or do on farm instruction yourself.
• Ensure that people are only doing work if they’re trained to do it and/or are properly supervised.
• Maintain accurate records of employee training and instruction. This will allow you to easily recognize which jobs they can and can’t do.

Employees have a right to get involved in workplace health and safety. A great way to encourage this is to elect a health and safety representative for your business. A health and safety representative will be someone your employees can talk to if they have workplace health and safety concerns or suggestions to make it safer. They can help find solution to health and safety problems.

Under the HSE Act a health and safety representative is entitled to take two days paid leave a year to attend approved health and safety training.

Contact AgSafe NZ Ltd:

Phone: 027-2872886

Email: james@agsafe.nz

Website: http://agsafe.nz/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AgSafeNZ/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/agsafe-nz/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agsafenz/

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