The SSSTS Course is a must have for Supervisors working in Construction

As anyone working on a construction site will be aware, health and safety is of paramount concern. and getting CITB recognised training can make a significant difference to how effective your supervising can be in terms of avoiding risks and promoting health and safety on site.

What is involved in completing a SSSTS course?
Supervisors are often faced with the difficult task of ensuring the job assigned to their team is completed competently and in a timely fashion, whilst ensuing that their teams’ safety is maintained. This is where the SSSTS course comes in. This course is one of the CITB’s Site Safety Plus range of courses. SSSTS is designed to train supervisors in areas such as:

• Identifying a supervisor’s duties.
• Issues of health and safety within the construction industry
• Current health and safety legislation
• How supervisors can work with managers and workers to ensure their teams safety and safeguard others on site.
• Risk assessments
• Conveying information to workers including briefings, tool box talks and how to conduct inductions.
• Risk Prevention
• How to ensure work on site is being conducted in a safe manner
• The importance of identifying unsafe practices and when to intervene.

The SSSTS course usually runs over two consecutive days. For individuals wishing to gain this qualification, training providers run the course at many different locations throughout the UK.

In company courses can also be set up for individual firms, but there does need to be a minimum of five delegates to complete the course to make it cost effective. This is particularly useful as delegates do not have to travel off site.

The SSSTS course is assessed by a multiple choice test at the end of the two days. In addition to this, the trainer monitors delegates progress throughout the course, providing feedback which when acted on is designed to improve performance.

Unlike the SMSTS course there is no refresher for the SSSTS. The SSSTS course is valid for five years after which time the full two day course needs to be taken again.

Who is it for?
Although there are a range of CITB courses available such as the SMSTS, PMSTS and SSSTS course, the SSSTS is specifically aimed at staff who are supervising gang or teams of workers. This means the SSSTS is suitable for line managers as well as foreman and gang / team leaders.

Why is it must have?
In addition to contributing to the career development of site supervisors and promoting a positive health and safety culture on site, the SSSTS remains a must have course as it meets the UKCG regulations.

The UK Contractors Group’s (UKCG) is made up of some of the largest construction firms within the UK. Their supervisor training standards require all those in a supervisory position to hold a qualification demonstrating their competence for this role.

The UKCG insist that supervisors working on their members’ sites must attend a certified training course of a minimum of two days, which address both current health and safety legislation and the role of how to be an effective supervisor.

The UKCG recognise the SSSTS course as a perfect match for these requirements.