As an employer, why should I provide refresher courses for my FLT operators?

It is recommended that you provide refresher courses for your team for a number of reasons.

It means that their skills are kept up to date, it keeps away any bad habits that could arise increasing the safety of themselves and their colleagues.

Many insurers require that regular refresher training is completed and whilst the HSE do not state that refresher courses have to be conducted after a set period, they will expect that you as an employer will do as much as is reasonably practicable to  ensure the safety of your operators.

Many employers arrange for refresher training and re-testing at somewhere between 3 and 5 year intervals.

In the event of an accident the authorities would want to know when the operators involved were last trained and if that was a very long time ago, a court may deem that it has been too long and that refresher training should have been given. Here is what they recommend in their guidance:

The HSE have the following guidance with regards to refresher training: There is no specific time period after which you need to provide refresher training or formal assessment. However, you may decide that automatic refresher training or a retest after a set period (for example 3-5 years) is the best way to make sure employees remain competent. Where you adopt this approach, you will still need to monitor performance, in case operators need extra training before the set period ends.

The length of a refresher training course will be set by assessment of the operators to identify shortcomings and any unsafe habits which need correction. It is not, therefore, possible to advise on the length of refresher training. However, it is unlikely that refresher courses of less than one day will be effective.

Full details on lift truck training guidance from HSE can be found here