While there are many different approaches to improving height safety outcomes at workplaces, there is one solution that would have an immediate effect.
When it comes to working at height and the risks associated with falls, there are many things that are already known.
The most commonly cited statistic is that falls are the second most common mechanism behind workplace fatalities in Australia. Only vehicle incidents take more lives each year.
Falls are also responsible for a substantial number of serious injuries at workplaces each year, leading to increased costs, lost time and, of course, the injury and ongoing consequences to the workers themselves.
How we address this? How do we start making in-roads into solving the problem of falls from height?
Ensuring workers are adequately trained from the start of their careers would be a first step.
The gap in height safety knowledge
A lot of how working at height and fall protection is regulated across Australia is done descriptively, rather than prescriptively. That is, risks associated with working at height are described and made known, but how they are solved in each individual circumstance is left up to the those responsible for those sites and those work environments.
That is, there is little that says, “if your situation is this, then you must do that“. The process is more like “assess your situation and decide for yourself what an appropriate mitigation would be“. It is left as an exercise for the supervisor, site owner or even the worker themselves to determine what needs to be done.
Whether or not their mitigation of the risks was adequate is usually only determined after the fact, once the accident has occurred.
Even the Australian Standards the Height Safety Engineers team use in every job worked on are not mandated by law. Through the layers of regulation and harmonised codes of practise, they would be referred to as part of an investigation into an accident, their use is not prescribed by law.
But that only happens after the fact.
The lack of specific direction on the risks and mitigations required to allow for safe working at heights leads to there being a substantial gap in knowledge that exists in many workplaces.
Where the height safety knowledge gap starts
Unfortunately, this gap in knowledge starts at the very beginning of a worker’s career.
Before any worker is allowed to enter a construction or building site or complete any work in a trade or adjacent field, they are required to complete their general induction course, or white card. This course provides a very basic and introductory overview of general workplace safety procedures.
In New South Wales, between 80,000 and 120,000 people have enrolled in a white card course each year since 2019.
Given the relative ease at which a worker can find themselves working at height (any fall “from one level to another like to cause injury to the person or another person”) it is reasonable to think the vast majority of those workers completing their white card course are also going to find themselves working at height as part of their job.
However, the number of people enrolling in foundational height safety training each year is only around 40,000, or less than half those completing their white card.
Contributing to the concern around this number is that while a white card is generally a once-off course in a worker’s career, it is recommended that height safety training be regularly refreshed at least every three years.
This would indicate the number of people working cross building, construction and trades is outstripping, and going to continue outstripping, the number of people with a foundational level of understanding around height safety and fall protection.
Why the height safety knowledge gap is a problem
The lack of height safety training being undertaken by workers presents a problem as it means there are large sections of the building, construction and trades cohort that lack the knowledge to properly identify and mitigate fall risks.
A white card is a broad awareness course. It does not spend time, or is able to spend time, properly equipping workers with knowledge around specific risk types.
In order to build comprehensive safety systems to protect people, there are three aspects that need to be addressed. The white card is the first step – a general awareness and understanding that workplaces expose people to risks and the processes in place to report and mitigate them.
After that comes skill-specific training. In this case, it would be training related to working at height.
The final piece to the puzzle is site-specific training. This typically takes the form of a site induction when a worker first attends a site or workplace.
It is only once all three aspects have been addressed are workers completely equipped to protect themselves and their colleagues from the risks that come with working at height.
Improving knowledge will improve safety
Getting workers equipped with basic, foundational knowledge around the risks of working at height and how they can be mitigated will being with it immediate improvements to workplace safety outcomes.
Training courses like RIIWHS204E Work safely at heights provide workers with the knowledge, skills and understanding to identify, assess and mitigate the risk of a fall from height.
Providing this introductory level of training for workers could be considered low-hanging fruit, easily implemented and will bring with it an immediate and substantial improvement in safety outcomes as they relate to falls from height.
Partners in protecting people
Height Safety Engineers are your partners in protecting working at height and in other high-risk environments. Our team can provide nationally accredited or customised training courses across a variety of safety needs including height safety, asbestos/silica awareness, rescue and more.
Explore our full range of training options or get in touch with us by calling 1300 884 978, emailing enquiries@heightsafety.net or dropping us a line through our contact form.
