New Working at Heights Training Standards
The government of Ontario has come out with a New Working at Heights Training Standards for this year that will be law sometime in the near future.
The new working at heights training standards are going to be mandatory for everyone in construction once it becomes law.
The reason for the change in the training of working at heights is the following:
1. To strengthen workplace safety culture by elevating the profile and importance of preventing falls from heights.
2. Provide workers who may be exposed to the hazard of falling with adequate knowledge about fall hazards and general safety practices to work safely at heights.
3. Provide workers who use personal fall protection equipment with sufficient knowledge about its purpose and use; and
4. Reduce the number of fall-from-heights incidents, injuries and fatalities.
The new training course has two modules in it, they are
1. Working at Heights Basic Theory Module
The Working at Heights Basic Theory module contains the following:
a. Rights and responsibilities related to working at heights under the Occupational Health and Safety Act
b. General hazard recognition for working at heights,
c. Hierarchy of controls,
d. Safety procedures for warning methods and physical barriers,
e. Safety procedures for ladders and similar equipment; and
f. An introduction to personal fall protection equipment.
2. Working at Heights Practical Equipment Module
The Working at Heights Practical Equipment module contains the following:
a. Barriers and safety nets
b. Personal fall protection equipment,
c. Anchor points,
d. Work positioning systems, work access and platforms; and
e. Rescue planning.
The new Working at heights training course will be valid for a period of three years.
This course will be replacing the existing Fall Arrest course that construction workers have been taking to legally work at heights previously. In previous years a refresher course was all that was needed to keep your fall arrest certificate valid and it was suppose to be given by a competent person once a year. At the moment there is no information on if there will still have to be a refresher course given once a year or if you will just simple have to take the course again every three years.
To date there isn’t any deadline for when everyone will have to comply with the new training regulations, hopefully more information will be made available once it actually passes into law.
Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.
Thanks for reading, you give me cause to read more posts.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea that there was working at heights training even available. It does make sense though that it does exist. It will come in hand to teach people how to work at high heights and still be safer on the job.
ReplyDeleteJak Manson | http://www.lri.com.au/height-safety
My dad and fiance work for a company where they do repairs on the roofs of tall buildings. When they got hired, I was so nervous because I didn't want them to get hurt and injured. Luckily, they were required to attend a working at heights training that taught them how to be safe while doing their job properly. http://www.lri.com.au/height-safety
ReplyDeleteI think that the standards for this training should be high. Individuals should be very careful when they are doing work at heights. There could be a lot of terrible consequences of not being properly trained.
ReplyDeleteGary Puntman | http://www.lri.com.au