Our youngest office staff member has passed her IOSH Managing Safely course and – she’s not alone
Office administrator Josie Allitt joins our general manager Katrina Jackson and surveyor Paul Glover to celebrate this achievement. Josie has been with us for several months and works hard in our Sherburn in elmet office. Paul has been with Brick-Tie for five years. He designs and specifies structural work and damp-proofing work, as well as wall tie replacement projects. This means he must have competence in risk assessment and in planning a safe system of work. Katrina has fifteen years under her belt and was promoted to general manager three years ago. Katrina and Josie don’t attend site very often, but they do organise the delivery of the work. In addition to this they both talk with our clients and site operatives via email and phone. As a result they need to understand our health and safety management systems properly.
When working on residential and commercial projects, last minute alterations to a specification, timings or work schedules can result in increased hazards. That’s because it may be weeks since our surveyors were on-site. Things can change. So it’s important for office staff to understand and respond to these events in a timely manner. We have a good safety management system but it depends on the full engagement of everyone involved. This is where outside courses and certifications come in.
In-depth health and safety competence.
Josie has excelled since joining Brick-Tie. She recently added the Fit2Fit certification for qualitative mask face fit testing to her CV. This allows Josie to train our technicians to wear, select and maintain their dust masks. A secure and reliable seal around the mask is crucial for lung health. We strive to control dust, but during structural work some dust will always escape. That’s why Josie tests. She uses a special hood, some saccharin and bitrex aerosols and of course, great patience and skill. In 2020 Josie will train in hand arm vibration assessment and measurement so that the health of our technicians is assured. Her work on improving our vibration management system has been excellent. Once she has achieved vibration assessment competence she will help drive down our vibration exposure, still further.
Mental Health first aid.
Katrina Jackson has recently passed her Mental Health First aid course. It’s constant improvement in health and safety competence for Kat, her competence covers manual handling, managing safely and mental health awareness. Our new surveyor David Gill has also stepped-up as our third Mental Health at work first aider – a real team effort. The construction industry has traditionally been a potentially stressful environment. As a result many forward thinking companies like ours, are putting improved mental health and well-being programs in place. Our thanks go to Resilient People for their excellent training provision.
Hazards are the same on small and large structural repair projects
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) Managing Safely course is internationally recognised as the basic level of management H&S competence. Our managers and supervisory staff need to pass this to help others work safe. Our MD Bryan Hindle has a greater depth of health and safety knowledge than this; the buck really does stop with him and, he takes this very seriously. He’s helped by our H&S consultants Stallard Kane and his Health and safety ‘guru’ Nigel Deane of iSafe. Bryan’s membership of IOSH and the voluntary work he does with ‘Working Well Together’ help keep health and safety ‘best-practice’ alive in Brick-Tie. But he is very busy, so it’s his duty to make sure that everyone plays their part in keeping our employees and clients safe.
If you are considering a project involving Structural work, Wall Tie Replacement or specialist Damp Proofing there are always hazards on site during the work. The Health and Safety Executive have confirmed that it is the smaller contractors on domestic sites who are responsible for the bulk of injuries to customers and workers. Brick-Tie aim to ensure our own safety and yours and your family’s too. We bring the same risk assessment and hazard control skills to residential projects, that are expected by our large commercial and institutional clients.
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