Our February 2021 manual handling campaign reduced injuries and increased observations.
HSE statistics show that manual handling is one of the most common causes of workplace injuries. Injuries can occur at any time and place. They can affect personal as well as working lives, and may lead to long-term health problems.
We wanted to increase awareness among all workers on sites. So we designated 22-26 February manual handling week.
Our goals were:
- educate people about the dangers of manual handling
- improve handling techniques at work and home
- reduce injuries
- increase safety observations
Results:
- No back injuries in the eight months since the campaign
- A rise in safety observations, and a better reporting culture
What we did:
We focused the campaign on the core message
Think TILE before you lift.
TILE summarises the four elements to consider before doing any manual handling. These are: task, individual, load, and environment.
All campaign activities were carried out in-house, except a manual handling video filmed by London Irish captain Matt Rogerson (see below).
- We publicised the campaign on social media, in our staff enews and in our Be safe brief.
- We published an update of our manual handling video and a 14-second snip (see above). The videos gained 2,209 views during the week.
- We gained 1,886 engagements on social media during the campaign week.
- The manual handling issue of the staff enews gained a 60% open rate.
- HSQE adviser Ben Keegan also wrote a manual handling training blog
- We created a campaign web page with the short url vgcgroup.co.uk/TILE. The relevant web pages gained nearly four times as many visits during 22 Feb to 7 March as in the previous fortnight.
- We created a TILE poster which we emailed to clients and placed on site noticeboards
- Labour managers delivered our manual handling toolbox talk (link goes to the pdf) to over 300 workers
- Between February and June 2021 our HSQE trainers gave 224 people online training and 318 people practical training.
Manual handling week in 2021 followed the success of our hand safety campaign in 2019.
