Free health and safety courses online at HSA e-learning portal

Joanne Harmon, Head of Education with the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), outlines the online suite of health and safety courses on offer from the HSA.

Online learning has now been embraced by many work sectors throughout Ireland. The HSA has taken a lead in this area and in 2014 launched its own e-learning portal, which is accessible at https://hsalearning.ie. The portal hosts online health and safety courses aimed at employers, employees, individuals with a specific safety role in the workplace, and those who wish to learn more about health and safety. The content is specific to workplaces in Ireland. By raising awareness of workplace health and safety, employers can help to reduce accidents and injury at work and foster a safety mind-set among their workers.

Awareness-raising

The short awareness-raising courses are free of charge to access and have been developed by the HSA with the aim of improving practical awareness of workplace safety, health and welfare. Short courses, ranging from 30 to 140 minutes, are available across a range of key topics relevant to hardware businesses on areas such as health and safety for small business employers and employees; chemical safety; slips, trips and falls; managing driving for work; and managing workplace bullying complaints.

The courses provide major benefits to business as they are a low cost and flexible way of raising awareness around health and safety. Employees also benefit by improving their knowledge and awareness levels of health and safety relevant to them in a practical and flexible learning environment. The courses will also be of interest to anyone delivering training around health and safety in the workplace.

Courses are short and can be taken more than once and can serve as a useful refresher for both employers and employees. Courses are highly visual, interactive and engaging, and designed
to hold attention and deliver learning in short chunks.

Group learning

A key feature of the online portal is the ‘group manager facility’. This enables employers, managers or tutors to register a group of learners to take a course and remotely monitor their progress. Learners can take courses during their own time and at their own pace and can download a certificate of completion on passing the short assessment.

Although not a formal qualification, certification can form art of an individual’s training record for work or part of a continuous professional development (CPD) record, which is another big incentive for employers and employees. All the courses are developed in line with a learning outcomes approach so this helps with CPD assessment.

A number of information leaflets are available to support the courses – these are available on the HSA’s website, www.hsa.ie or hard copies may be obtained by contacting the HSA by telephone, 1890 289 389 or email, wcu@hsa.ie.

To see the range of HSA courses on offer, you can browse courses and/or register at www.hsalearning.ie. By registering on the portal once, you can check out any of our courses. For organisations looking for assistance in how best to choose courses for their business, the HSA Education unit is happy to advise them. Contact us at educationunit@hsa.ie.

Businesses may also be interested in the Authority’s BeSMART Tool which helps businesses to prepare their safety statement online. BeSMART.ie is a free, easy-to-use online tool that lets you prepare your own safety statement and risk assessments for your business. The law requires that you carry out risk assessments and compile a safety statement for your workplace. Check out www.besmart.ie for a simplified process, that will help you meet your legal obligations.

This Business Support article featured in the November/December 2017 edition of The Hardware Journal.