Objectives And Challenges Of Work Health And Safety (WHS) Adviser Training And Development

Answer to question 1

The Essay Is Going To Discuss The Objectives Of The Education Department While Explaining The Challenges Which Have a Direct Impact On The Work Health And Safety (WHS) adviser training and development. Along with this, the paper is going to identify all the key competencies which are required to the advisers in order to share their training and developmental knowledge to support the organization.

Lastly, the paper is going to identify as well as discuss different strategies which will be helpful in supporting the objectives of organization by maintaining a detail about how the strategy will be helpful in doing so. In addition to this, it will be highlighted in the paper regarding the purpose of the training needs of the advisers by conducting a thorough need analysis to extract its benefits in the organization. Also, data will be collected to explain the rationale of the methods of need analysis.

The main objective of the Education Department is to support the schools present in the state so that they can meet the standards related to the education, co-curricular activities, and welfare for the concerned people in the school. The Education Department is also responsible in trying to figure out as well as formulate the required and necessary policies and programmes in order to implement them for the purpose of providing the elementary education, secondary education to the concerned ones, as per Bluff (2019).

Additionally, there is also another objective of the Education Department which is to look after the Work Health and Safety (WHS) legal compliance. The main aim is to provide a balanced as well as nationally consistent framework in order to secure the aspect of the health as well as safety to the workers and to the workplaces, as per the opinion of Clarkson et al. (2018). And, for this purpose, they recruit advisers to support the leaders of the school in helping them with the decision making of Work Health and Safety (WHS).

To provide the adequate support to the schools and its leaders in order to improve the safety of the school in terms of the decision making related to the Work Health and Safety (WHS), the Education Department had decided to recruit around 18 full-time advisors. They had been allocated to their regions where they had been given the responsibility to meet the leaders of the school, review their safety arrangements as well as support them by recommending the ways to enhance Work Health and Safety (WHS) in the schools, as per Darabi et al. (2019). However, the role of the advisers is not easy and they had been facing different kinds of challenges in serving their duties as well. It was challenging because they were to provide different types of complex ideas and concepts to the leaders and convince them so that they adhere to those which might have seemed significantly unfavourable to them. Also, they needed to maintain positive working and healthy relationship with them. Here, they faced the real challenge because the advisers had been facing difficulty in communicating with the leaders and they had no chance to keep in touch with the other advisers as well as they were placed in far off places as per the opinion of Goldenberg  et al. (2018).

Answer to question 2

The key competency of the Work Health and Safety (WHS) advisers are that they are required to be significantly sound with technical knowledge along with a high degree of the required credibility in this field. In addition to this, the advisers must possess the skills of persuasion; communicate the ideas in a diplomatic way by reflecting a leadership quality. In order to achieve these competencies to support the objectives of the organization, the advisers need to be trained accordingly and properly by the management. After the completion of the thorough training process, proper examination must be taken both theoretically and practically, as per Tamers et al. (2020). More emphasis should be given in the communication skills because they need to have the ability to communicate with the leaders effectively and efficiently.

A safe and healthy management system in the schools pertaining to the students and the other staff members is hugely appreciated in order to get the on-going process of the system intact and smooth. Possessing a safe, sound and healthy workforce in terms of the students and the staff members is highly desirable to be able to aim in promoting constant improvement in the process the school tries to manage its safety protocols, as the claims made by Australia (2021). However, only training and development in this purpose does not fulfil the responsibility of the job. Therefore, other strategies are also required to fill in the gap. The other strategies which are helpful in support the objective of establishing Work Health and Safety in the schools by the Education Department beyond the policies of training and development are as follows-

• To implement safety measures in the Educational Department like first aid kits, sick rooms, in house doctors present in the schools- This will be helpful in case if any student and any staff members suddenly feels sickness or uneasiness in the premises. With the safety measures in hand, they can be given first hand treatment in the premises only before admitting to the hospitals, if required (Romero et al. 2018).
• Keeping the premises safe, healthy- This is significantly important in maintaining the health and safety in the organization like schools by keeping the premises sanitised to keep it virus and bacteria free, and be rescued of any germs and infections as per Tamers et al. (2020).
• Fixation of any kind of furniture and amenities- It is another significantly important point to maintain the assets, amenities and the furniture in a good and safe condition so that there is no risks and harms attached to it when students and staff members use it for any purpose. The assets, amenities and the furniture are needed to be checked time to time by their experts and it any dispute is found, it should be dedicatedly fixed then and there to avoid any kind of risks and harm caused to anybody, as per (Sorensen et al.2021).
• Checking of the electrical appliances time to time- It is considered to be one of the most important criteria which can be used to ensure safety of the premise, students and staff members. The electrical devices and appliances require frequent checking by the experts to avoid any cases of short circuit and major electrical hazards (Lacko 2020).

The Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is referred to the process of identification of gaps in between the employee training as well as the needs and the requirements of the training purposes, as per the opinion of Sahoo and Mishra (2019). Through the Training Needs Analysis (TNA), the trainee is able to learn the skills, behavioural patterns as well as the knowledge related to the job in order to improve the basic requirements through the rigorous process of training as well as development which helps in the felicitation of the performance.

The benefits of the Training Needs Analysis (TNA) are as follows-

• Training Needs Analysis (TNA) helps in assessment of the required knowledge as well as skills. The one of the major benefits of Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is to be filling in the gaps between needed skills and knowledge and train them to develop the skills before it turns out to be an issue in actual field of requirements (Mahmood et al.2018).
• The Training Needs Analysis (TNA) helps in planning the training programmes for an entire year. It helps in finding out the qualities of the Leadership Development Programmes or various other kinds of developmental training programmes to train the individuals to get them success in the working practices.
• It enables the process of training to be focused in maintain the right areas. The completion of the Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is significantly helpful in determining the areas where it is needed to be focused and highlighting the areas of strength and weaknesses and helps in working work to get the process straight (Lisdiantini, Syafitri and Afandi 2018).

The advices which are needed to be given to the organization on the different steps involved in the conduction of the Training Needs Analysis (TNA) at the organisational, person and task level for the position of WHS Advisers are as follows-

• Conduction of a pre-assessment process with the people
• Conduction of a performance checking programme of the people
• Extracting the performance analysis and the delivery report to observe the performance
• Finding the issues of the performance which are required to be handled through training
• Conduction of a personal session with the concerned people to discuss the issues thoroughly (Paposa and Kumar 2019)
• After understanding the area of the issue, a developmental plan can be designed to help sort the issues within a fixed timing. The training and developmental plan can be executed by the experts who can address the personal needs well.
• For the WHS advisors, the communication skills must be checked in the training sessions along with the skills for persuasion and convincing power

• Most of the people were technically sound in their purpose of job
• They were able to understand and follow the practical requirements in the field of work
• Some of them lacked the communication, deliverable, and persuasion skills which are needed to be trained

• Direct observation- Observing the needs and requirements, strength and weaknesses
• Preparing questionnaire- Helpful in asking the issues
• Regular practice- Thorough practice in the training is helpful in getting the skills right
• Conduction of meeting to discuss the issue- Helps in establishing the communication
• Record and report the sessions- Helps in analysis each training session in terms of improvement and modification of the trainees
• Survey- Helps in generating the feedback, problems, and issues
• Examination- Helps in evaluating the performance

Answer to question 3

Conclusion

The essay has discussed the objectives of the Education Department by explaining the challenges of the Work Health and Safety (WHS) adviser in the case study. The paper identified the key competencies required for the advisers in order to share their training and developmental knowledge to support the organization.

The paper identified different strategies which are helpful for supporting the objectives of organization by observing a detailed analysis as to how the strategies are helpful in doing so. Additionally, the purpose of the training needs for the advisers is also highlighted by conducting a thorough need analysis research to extract its benefits in the organization. Also, data of the training sessions were collected in order to explain the need for the improvement and the areas of the issues. The rationale of the methods of need analysis was also discussed to find the suitable method of training purposes and their job.

References 

Australia, S., 2021. Work Health and Safety Regulations 2012.

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Darabi, H., Ranjbar Vakilabadi, D., Keshmiri, S., Ramavandi, B., Ziayei, M. and Omidvar, M., 2019. Necessity of Academic Education in health, safety and Environment (HSE) at Postgraduate level. ISMJ, 22(4), pp.248-263.

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