Why Manual Handling Training should NEVER be in the classroom.

I went on my refresher course for my manual handling train the trainer qualification a couple of weeks back which was provided at a factory in Derby. For myself, I train manual handling around 3-4 times a week under the brand Skill Up Safety.

The training was 3 days long, bland, irrelevant, and most importantly when asked any questions about their specific jobs the trainer would just dismiss the question and say what did we discuss in the theory. To all 12 delegates that attended I would honestly say it was a waste of time. One of the most eye-opening moments was when I said what about pushing and pulling pallet trucks with over 1 tonne on them? The trainer's answer .....

"Bend your knees, keep your back straight"        

I then proceeded to ask, but a deep squat (which is not the best way anyway) is not going to work on a pallet truck. The trainer (who has 22 years of experience in the industry) then said look at the course notes. I pushed the final question which is can we do some practical training with some pallet trucks (mainly because I like trainers reassessing myself to make sure I am still in a good position) and the answer was "this course doesn't offer any practical elements"

This honestly shocked me, 3 days in a classroom, rammed full of theory, with zero practical elements (not even an empty box!) How can you allow any trainer to leave your training room without assessing even some basic lifting technique? When it came to course closure I finished the test with 29/30 which was annoying as with most tests there is always one question to catch you out.

Fast forward 2 weeks later and .......

This is the sort of practical training we love! A couple of the race engineers asked me about what is the safest way to push their race car into the pits? Our answer, have a discussion with delegates during the short presentation, then get into the working areas and show them and then allow them to practice.

To give a very short list of some of the items I have handled during training courses in the last 2 weeks:

• 25kg bags of lawn seed
• 1.5-tonne pallet truck with bacon
• Some broken benches at a private school
• 500L commercial bins for a council
• 47kg team handling on a machine part (on and off the machine)
• Massive plant pots at an events company

Although this list may not cover what your company handles we are more than happy to discuss what you require with manual handling training and with courses starting from as little as ￡495 and train the trainer on-site courses from only ￡1250 you can have training that your staff will enjoy and walk away with the full understanding they require.

Either email

[email protected]

or call me on 0800 6128 329

Thanks for reading

Trent Mohan