Occupational safety training for professionals: why it’s important

According to data from the Institute, there were 382,288 accidents at work reported to Inail in Italy in the first six months of 2022 (+43.3% compared to the same period of 2021). Reports of occupational diseases also increased, amounting to 31,085 (+7.7%). For us at Jopla, occupational health and safety training are fundamental, not only for companies and employers who must comply with the obligation, but also for professionals who work on their own. Recognizing an emergency, dealing with it in the best possible way and preventing risk situations (physical and psychological) is important not only for one’s own safety but also for the people with whom the person comes into contact at work.

“Whether you are a customer or a professional, always guarantee the safety and cleanliness of the environment for the people you work with”. This is one of the rules of our community guidelines. In fact, for us at Jopla, a workplace must be safe and healthy, both physically and psychologically. That’s why we have included occupational safety among the eight items that make up the reviews. What is it about? This is feedback that you can receive from your customers, or that you can give to customers and companies if you work through our platform. The goal is to obtain useful and constructive feedback from both sides on very important issues.

Therefore in this article we at Jopla want to deepen the importance of training and safety at work for professional people, freelance or not.

Let’s see how and why.

Learning techniques and notions that protect you, first of all, but also your business and the people who come into contact with your work makes the difference. An occupational safety training course, or more than one, gives you and your customers more peace of mind.

It also enriches your curriculum vitae and is certainly a point in your favor if you are looking for work and new customers.

In case you don’t want or can’t participate in courses, and you are not interested in having certificates, you can learn the skills you need by studying books and manuals.

Furthermore, occupational safety can have many facets and not only include the emergency aspect linked, for example, to first aid. In fact, it can also concern other equally important issues.

Discover them by continuing to read the article.

Owning a first aid certificate is useful if you come into contact with other people in your work, even in the case of a freelancer or sole proprietorship with no employees. Furthermore, the certificate is still precious to you in everyday life, not only for applying life-saving techniques, but also with a view to prevention.

The first aid course, in fact, allows you to know how to act best in emergency situations, at least without making the situation worse.

What do you take home with a first aid certificate? You learn to recogniSe an emergency, to contact the emergency services by communicating with them in the best possible way and clearly. You also learn the techniques and interventions to be implemented in the event of trauma, exposure to chemical and biological agents, haemorrhage, respiratory obstruction, resuscitation, transport or movement of a person who has suffered fractures, etc. Finally, you will also know the main work-related pathologies and what are the most frequent types of trauma.

As we have said, occupational safety training is not made up only of first aid. Among the other fundamental subjects, for example, there are also hygiene and food safety.

For this reason, a HACCP course (acronym for Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) can be useful not only for the categories required to attend it.

In fact, with the Coronavirus pandemic, we have seen how important it is to respect hygiene rules and maintain a high standard of cleaning and sanitizing of environments.

Thanks to this course, which lasts a few hours and which you can also attend online, you will learn many other useful concepts: what are food allergens, how to preserve food, how to avoid contamination in drinks and food.

Work is increasingly digital and security now also includes the protection of privacy. Every professional, in fact, comes into daily contact with information and personal data of their customers.

For this reason it is good to know the national and international legislation that regulates the processing of such data and learn how to guarantee and protect the privacy of sensitive information. And to do it best, a professional must know the rights of customers as well as the obligations and responsibilities, including surveillance, that are due to him/her.

That’s why a training course on privacy and data processing could be very useful for your job.

The protection of privacy is closely connected with digital security, or cybersecurity. If you are a professional you know that almost every communication with your customers takes place via the internet: email, videocall, messaging app, social networks, website, etc.

However, any data, information and communication that passes through the web is potentially at risk and has vulnerabilities to protect.

First of all, it is unfortunate that your mailbox, website or social channels can be hacked. And this damage, consequently, also affects your customer because his data becomes exposed and the domain of others.

To anticipate and avoid nasty surprises, such as cyber crimes and scams, attend a training course on cyber security. Find out how you can escape hacker attacks on your email, network, apps, viruses and malware that can damage your devices. Also learn to recognize suspicious emails to avoid opening them and replying to equally suspicious messages.

Depending on your profession, however, you may find other types of safety skills useful. For example, a fire-fighting course, a course or manuals on work-related stress risk assessment to achieve greater psychophysical well-being.

If, on the other hand, you want to guarantee customers and companies you work with a serene and safe working environment and climate to make everyone feel at ease, creating a “safe space”, trained on the issues of inclusiveness and accessibility.

Another important aspect to take into consideration for the psychological safety of the customers you come into contact with is kindness. Think about how good manners and assertiveness can affect, for example, when teaching a sport, or playing and singing to adults or children. If you want to dig deeper into this aspect, we have written an article on kind leadership that may be for you.

In this article we have seen that occupational safety training can embrace numerous fields and topics. For example, we have explored the importance of hygiene, health and first aid, but also of privacy and IT security.

If you are looking for a job or a new clientele, open your profile on Jopla and highlight all your occupational health and safety skills.

In fact, in the “Training” section, you can indicate the courses you have attended and in “Certificates and Enabling” you can upload certificates and recognitions.

Have a nice job!