CPB Contractors continues to evolve the way we do business, adapting our processes and providing training to our people, upskilling them to best prepare for new industry challenges.
In light of the evolving changes in respirable crystalline silica, workplace exposure limits, health risks and legislation, CPB Contractors engaged one of Australia’s leading workplace health and occupational hygiene specialists, GCG to deliver a week-long workshop designed to enhance the understanding of occupational hygiene across the business, increase the number of experienced workplace health and safety personnel trained in this competency within the company, and to address specific challenges related to exposure to respiratory hazards. This is the second group training program provided to our people this year and delivered by GCG with an earlier week-long training program executed in May this year.
GCG’s workshop, endorsed and recognised internationally by the Occupational Health Training Association, was developed specifically for CPB Contractors. GCG’s team of expert Occupational Hygiene Specialists provided practical and theoretical modules related to construction, focusing on critical topics including construction and tunnelling hazards, exposure monitoring and interpretation of results, Respiratory Protective Equipment, dust controls, risks of exposures to airborne contaminants, noise thermal.
Twenty of our employees, all of whom work in key safety roles, across all sectors, and on relevant projects nationally, attended the workshop in Brisbane with each providing insight into their own experiences and challenges surrounding current and emerging risks related to respirable crystalline silica and airborne contaminants, including welding fumes, as well as effective controls to minimise the risk of exposure and how to measure exposure to these risks in construction in all sectors.
CPB Contractors General Manager SHEQ & Sustainability, Graeme Silvester said, “To ensure the best outcome, we engaged key people across CPB Contractors to gain a comprehensive first-hand understanding on the risks and challenges related to work health and safety, with a particular focus on respiratory hazards, the effectiveness of current methods of control, exposure monitoring and reporting. The extensive workshop, led by GCG’s specialist experts provided the right environment to enable open and robust discussions, centred around real challenges and scenarios across our projects, providing us insights to further develop our processes and guidelines.”
CPB Contractors Return to Work and Wellbeing Advisor, Jessica Knight attended the training and believes courses like this remove stigmas relating to respiratory exposure and are invaluable in educating our industry on the risks and, importantly on monitoring and effectively analysing the data.
Jessica Knight said, “By stepping into the boots of workers, we were able to experience first-hand the risks to exposure across a typical work shift and across various project environments, which is enabling us to develop new training, tools and processes tailored to the specific needs.”
Utilising these insights, CPB Contractors is developing a refreshed action plan, which will include training programs to upskill all workers, enabling them to meet the requirements of the changing legislation.
“There needs to be change in the way people think about exposure and this all comes down to education, not just on the risks, but on monitoring and real-time interpretation of that data to allow them to respond. The knowledge and skills gained from this course are transferable across all sectors of construction and plays an important role in training and development to ensure the future health and safety of all people across our sites, which remains our number one priority,” Jessica said.
Graeme Silvester adds, “As Australia’s largest contractor with up to 60 projects in delivery at any one time, we are constantly exploring new ways to develop and improve our processes, training programs and guidelines to adapt to our changing industry. The real experiences and insights from our people combined with the expert knowledge and practical workshops from GCG’s specialists has provided us valuable insights to further develop our procedures to protect the health and wellbeing of all people working on our projects. We look forward to sharing this important work with industry in the hope it can benefit other contractors to develop their own processes and best prepare for the changing legislation.”