COVID-19 has shaken everyone up and as a safety training company, we’d like to let you know how Tap into Safety is helping you in this crisis, through recovery and beyond.
Almost 600,000 workers have lost their jobs so far during this crisis, and many predict there is more pain to come when the Federal Government supports such as Job Keeper expire. It has been noted that 80% of your employees are highly anxious, there’s been a rise of 5% of suicide attempts, 60% increase in gambling, 10% increase in violence associated with an increase in alcohol consumption, and 75% increase in calls for help for domestic violence. Workplace mental health is a priority and Tap into Safety is helping (see our articles, COVID-19 and the Rise in Domestic Violence and COVID-19: Reduce Your Employee’s Anxiety, and what you can do as a business to support employees who are at risk).
At the same time, business is grappling on how to meet their OHS Obligations to provide a workplace that is physically and psychologically safe. The Duty of Care Requirements and Industrial Manslaughter Laws haven’t gone away (see our articles, COVID-19 Psychological Health Legal Implications and How to Adhere to Industrial Manslaughter Laws). Training to induct, teach hazard awareness and verify competencies is a priority and many organisations are moving to provide whatever they can online.
Finally, money is a problem because many organisations are unsure of work going forward. There has been a notable drop in privately funded construction projects, and cash is difficult to access due to the tightening of bank lending criteria. Reducing spending and holding onto cash is critical.
With the above in mind, Tap into Safety is helping our clients in several ways.
Mental Health Training in Response to COVID-19
With employee mental health at rock-bottom, your business is at risk. Not only are stressed, anxious and depressed employees less productive, but they are also more likely to decline and need additional support. Psychological health is now strongly featuring in your health and safety duty of care requirements. Safe Work Australia provides guidance material that places the management of work-related stress within a risk management framework and specific information for industries managing through COVID-19.
How Tap into Safety is helping to support your employee’s through COVID-19 is with dedicated training on topics that directly impact their mental health. Your employees need to learn how to recognise signs and symptoms of declining mental health, what they can do to help themselves, and who to reach out to if they need further help and support.
We have spent the last six weeks extending our online and mobile-friendly training platform. We use micro-learning to teach coping strategies and where to seek help when things get too tough. Some of the topics we cover include:
- Helping Employees with Mental Health Concerns
- Depressive Thoughts and Alcohol Use
- Working from Home
- Managing Your Employees
- Signs of Declining Mental Health in Employees
- Fear of Job Loss
- Domestic Violence
- Fatigue Management
- Financial Stress
- Gambling Addiction
On the training platform, we also have some free support material including articles on mental health conditions with information on strategies and help your employees can use to address these issues. Coming soon we will be adding several free mindfulness meditations to help to de-stress and address anxious and depressive thoughts. These can be used whenever an employee needs a quick reset, before getting back into their working day.
Fundamentally, our platform helps you to answer the question “What are you doing to help your employees through COVID-19?”
See our article, COVID-19: Reduce Your Employee’s Anxiety.
Online Safety Training in Response to COVID-19
Not only is employee mental health an ongoing concern, but COVID-19 makes safety training delivery difficult, particularly when organisations rely on traditional classroom deliveries. However, organisations can deliver their safety inductions, hazard awareness and VOC’s online and this is where Tap into Safety is helping.
We now have our Online Safety Induction where we will plug in our out-of-the-box training courses for example, General Safety Induction, Environmental Hazards, Fitness for Work, COVID-19 and Your Workplace, and Workplace Bullying. We do the work, so you don’t have to.
Alternatively, if you already have your induction online you can hyperlink our training content to make it more engaging and retire some of your hundreds of PowerPoint slides. Also, our reporting measures against the knowledge of controls and critical controls to reveal any gaps that you need to address before a new employee starts work.
The Platform already has a substantial library of interactive, out-of-the-box training, supported by robust GAP analysis reporting, with over 35 courses on high-risk activities. Many clients use our software for their safety awareness training and VOC’s for high-risk tasks. We also build custom-content if there is a specific course that you need.
During the lockdown and continuing this year, we are rapidly expanding our out-of-the-box safety training courses to include topics such as:
- Manual Handling in the Warehouse
- Handling and Storage of Chemicals
- Silica Dust
- Isolating Energy Sources
- Rigging, Dogging and Mobile Crane
- Excavations and Trenchwork
- Formwork and Falsework
- Working at Height
Contact Us for more information or try a free 7-day trial.
See our article, Make Your Workplace Safety Training More Impactful.
Low Cost, High Quality, Online Training with Robust Reporting
Dollars are tight and pressures are high, but you need to deliver your safety and mental health training. Tap into Safety is helping to keep your compliance up and your costs down. We offer access to our Platform through a per-use credits model. A $10 credit gets you a single-use, and pre-purchased credits are valid for 12 months. There is no lock contract or subscription fee, you simply pay for what you use.
Our training has exceptional quality using 360-degree panoramic scenes, sophisticated animated videos, supported by audio and subtitles, and dashboards and portals that are easy to use.
Tap into Safety is helping to reduce costs by offering usage, user and GAP analysis group reports at no charge. These reports prove competence and compliance and help you to audit employee safety knowledge around high-risk tasks. We’re pleased to report that our clients rave about our reporting:
The visual reports allowed us to identify gaps in the safety knowledge retained by employees.
During this challenging time, we will continue to offer high-quality content across a range of topics, free reporting and support materials, and low-cost entry onto the Platform (minimum entry is only $200), so that even the smallest company can join our 800+ clients. Credits will remain at $10 each including GST to support organisations as they navigate through the COVID-19 recovery.
See our articles, Reporting to Comply With Industrial Manslaughter and How to Make Your WHS Reporting Relevant to Different Audiences.
How Tap into Safety Will Continue to Help Post Covid-19
Trust in training content is important when you are training in high-risk tasks and supporting mental health. Tap into Safety is helping you to meet your compliance requirements because all of our content is written by highly-qualified safety professionals and mental health experts. And, we’re keen to hear what other safety or mental health training courses you’d like us to include on the Platform. Please make your suggestions, and we’ll see what we can do.
Also, we will continue to publish quality articles every week and link back to the university research and other expert reports that will help you to manage your organisation’s safety and well-being. If you’re not already a subscriber of our newsletter, it’s free to join.
We have also started the Tap into Safety podcast that you can listen to on your favourite podcast provider or you can find us on iTunes and Spotify.
We’re on a mission to keep every worker safe, every day, and look forward to continuing to help you through this crisis and beyond. Keep safe, keep well!