In 2024, there were 24 workers in Australia killed by falls from heights, based on Safe Work Australia’s most recent key work health and safety statistics. This equates to 13% of total deaths of workers in that year. The victims were not necessarily new workers, as some of them had obtained their training certificates before the accident.
An Ever-Present Danger
Roofs, ladders, mezzanines, scaffolds, trays of trucks and cargo containers all present drops which may result in injury. Falls do not need to be high to become dangerous. A fall from even a low height onto a hard surface can result in broken bones, concussions or permanent disabilities.
Experience can be a dangerous thing. People who have spent decades working at heights without a working at heights refresher course eventually become so used to what they do that the simplest precautions become unnecessary. A harness may be put on too loosely, an anchor checked without care, or a task considered too short for a proper setup.
It will not always announce itself until the time comes.
What Refresher Courses Actually Cover?
A refresher course is a timely reminder, sending workers back to the basics of height safety training. Rather than going over it all again from scratch, it’s all about getting those practical judgement skills back on track and ironing out bad habits that have crept in over the years. That theory and hands-on assessment go hand in hand, and that’s a good starting point.
Typically a refresher course will cover:
- That old chestnut about the hierarchy of control, how to make work at height not even an option in the first place.
- The right tools for the job, choosing between fall prevention, restraint and fall arrest systems.
- Keeping equipment in top nick; are those harnesses, lanyards and connectors still good to go?
- Finding the right anchor points, and knowing when to say no to a particular one
- What to do in a rescue situation, before anyone even thinks about leaving the ground.
Rescue planning, you can’t overemphasise this bit. A worker left dangling in a harness after a fall can end up in a world of trouble; that’s why Safe Work Australia is dead serious about having a plan in place and being ready to put it into action. Sites that don’t have a solid plan in place are often left wishing they had something more in place ’til it’s too late.
When Workers Should Be Getting A Refresher?
Australian work health and safety laws aren’t too prescriptive on how often height safety training needs to be refreshed; instead, businesses have to make sure workers have the training they need to cope with the risks they’re facing. Victoria has similar requirements under its own laws.
In reality, a lot of employers and principal contractors end up setting their own rules around refresher intervals; some big construction and resources sites won’t even let workers on site unless their training is up to date. It’s a different story with every company, so workers should probably check the site’s specific requirements before turning up.
Certain things should be a big red flag and prompt a refresher, regardless of how recently they last trained:
- A fall, near miss or actual incident on site.
- New fall protection gear or anchor systems being rolled out.
- Sticking a toe into a new role or working a different type of site.
- A supervisor catching someone doing something that’s just plain not right.
Leaving it too long between refresher training and one of these things happens leaves you with a big problem on your hands.
A Piece Of Paper vs Actual Skills
That certificate that shows someone passed an assessment might be a nice bit of paperwork, but it doesn’t tell you if they can actually remember to fit their harness right this morning. Safety regulators have a very clear message here: businesses need to make sure workers are actually competent, not just have the right paperwork.
Supervisors play a big role here, as they get to see how workers go about their job at height, day in, day out. And those toolbox talks between the formal training sessions can be just as important as the sessions themselves; they help keep the key steps fresh in everyone’s mind.
Yes, the paperwork still counts for something. Training dates, course content and assessment results are all important for safety audits and keeping track of who needs to be retrained next.
Height safety doesn’t really go wrong because workers know nothing about it. It goes wrong when, slowly but surely, all the right steps start getting forgotten, and then one day, someone falls and suddenly all that missed training looks like a very expensive mistake.
