Member Article

Michelle Hay Training works with Hughes Safety Showers

Stockport’s health and safety training expert Michelle Hay has completed her latest training contract with leading manufacturers Hughes Safety Showers.

The contract involved training all of Hughes Safety Showers staff at their head office in Bredbury on working safely and getting them through the CIEH Health and Safety in the Workplace Level 2 qualification.

Hughes Safety Showers is a world-leading manufacturer of emergency safety showers, eyebaths and decontamination equipment. It supplies its products worldwide and has built a reputation over the last 45 years for excellent engineering design, stringent quality standards and unrivalled customer service and support.

Managing Director Tony Hughes said that in a manufacturing environment it is crucial to invest in staff training and awareness of proper process around hazard management and risk assessment day to day.

“I wanted someone who could take the whole workforce through the health and safety qualification and ensure a 100% pass rate for people in a variety of roles. It was a complex brief, but Michelle came highly recommended and we are delighted to be working with her.”

Michelle said of the work: “If the middle name of your company is safety, then there’s an added pressure to have robust and effective health and safety policy and procedures throughout the organisation. It’s good to be working with Tony and his team.”

After assessing the operation and the diversity of the health and safety implications at the company Michelle put a two day programme into place for each individual, day one being manual handling, COSHH - hazardous substances and fire safety awareness - and day two, everything else.

Explaining how she approached the work Michelle commented: “Over a period of four weeks I trained 57 people to work safely in all aspects of their role. The manufacturing site has nearly every hazard identified on the HSE website and it was easy to discuss live scenarios with them throughout the training.

The two-day approach benefited trainees, as they had time to digest, review and practice what they had learnt. It also gave everyone an opportunity to come back on day two with specific work related questions that Michelle was able to answer or encourage them to find the answer for themselves.

Michelle said involving the whole company worked well. “The groups were a mix of employees from the shop floor, office, accounts and so when it came to practicing risk assessments each could bring a fresh view on the others work environment.

“It also tends to mean that change will be encouraged by all and everyone will be moving in the same health and safety direction,” she added.

Michelle said of the team. “I was really impressed by the passion and commitment to the health, safety and welfare of themselves and others. Needless to say, the pass rate was exceptionally high.”

Steve Hudson, HR Manager at Hughes, said that the training had made a real difference to the team. “It has significantly raised the knowledge, competence and, most importantly, the profile of health and safety within the business.

“All the staff now have a health and safety qualification, which also covers all our legislative requirements. In fact Michelle’s approach is so ingrained it is not uncommon now to hear the staff discussing a safety issue and asking the question what would Michelle say?”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sue Souter .