Manual handling regulations

Manual handling at work is a health & safety issue. Under Irish legislations, you're required as an employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the safety, health and welfare of your employees. The term is about physical activity that's a necessity in almost every workplace at one time or another. The result is that manual handling is a potential workplace hazard, so you should look to guard against it. It follows you should know the correct policies to put in place in order to remain compliant with Irish health & safety laws.

Moving and handling legislation

Manual handling isn’t always a hazard to your employees. But if your workforce has to lift heavy objects occasionally (or regularly), you must establish your manual handling guidelines to reduce the risk of an employee suffering injuries. The outline for manual handling is in the Safety, Health, and Welfare at Work Regulations 2007 (part four, chapter two). Regulation 68 goes on to define this labour task as: “Any transporting or supporting of any load by one or more employees, and includes lifting, putting down, pushing, pulling, carrying or moving a load, which by reason of its characteristics or unfavourable ergonomic conditions, involves risk, particularly of back injury, to employees.”

Employer responsibilities

There are specific obligations you have as an employer you must comply with by putting correct moving and handling regulations in place. These are:

• Carry out a risk assessment of tasks in your workplace before deciding which of these tasks to avoid, reduce, or keep.
• Where possible, organise for mechanical products to complete tasks where this will reduce hazards to employees.
• Provide relevant instructions and training to staff members as and when necessary
• In addition, you should keep an up-to-date record of any accidents.

Risk assessments

It’s your duty to examine manual handling activities in your business to see which activities you can remove or complete through mechanical means. You can do this with a risk assessment. It’s an important part of looking after your employees. You can approach it in several stages:

1. Collect data about the various carrying or handling tasks in your business. This information will include details on how to perform the task. Your consultation should include feedback from employees who complete this task.
2. Gather information about the objects that need regular moving. The details should include size, weight, required number of manual lifts, and details about how the employee goes about picking up or carrying objects.
3. Identify risk factors. Refer to the Safety, Health, and Welfare at Work Regulations 2007 (chapter four part two) for reference.
4. Highlight potential improvements you can make to reduce risk factors in your working environment. Investigate ways you can make the situation better, such as through manual handling equipment such as mechanical aids. At every step of the process, document why you intend to introduce new measures and how you think this can reduce the chance of employee injury.
5. Finally, you need to review the effectiveness of your new measures. This will help determine whether your plans will prove successful.

Manual handling training

To help your employees avoid injury, you can provide them with training. You can offer them this prior to starting their role, or prior to any changes in their position that requires lifting or carrying objects. You’ll have to approach your workplace activities under the assumption that your employees don’t know how to lift objects in the correct manner. A manual handling assessment can ensure your staff know how to go about their duties in a safe and timely manner. Objects that are relatively light can still pose a risk of injury to your staff members. This is especially the case if they haven’t had the right training. If they then attempt to lift something in the wrong way, and in the wrong conditions, it can result in injury. Lifting and carrying can result in strains that lead to a large proportion of days off sick. This is because back pains are usually the result of damage to a disc. As bending over causes pressure to build on discs, if an employee overdoes it this can cause damage to the spine. You can also add health & safety signs and a manual handling poster into areas where employees regularly carry out tasks involving a manual handling risk. You can accompany these with any manual handling courses or guides you consider useful for your employees.

Refresher training

Do remember your employees will require refresher training over time to ensure you can manage new risks. Hold this training at intervals of no less than once every three years. However, if there’s a significant change to your business premises, or you introduce new mechanical equipment to your workplace, then this training should take place prior to any staff members starting work.

Manual handling assessment form

As part of your procedures, you can create a form to use for checks of your working environment. This is a checklist that covers preliminary and remedial actions during your manual handling assessment of your working environment. A risk assessment must identify risks affecting your workplace—a form will help as you can systematically check your business for potential issues and pinpoint definite action points.

Need more help?

If you need help with the manual handling regulations or any other element of your health & safety procedures, then get in touch with us today on 0818 923 923.