Let BuilderStorm Manage Your SMSTS Courses

The construction industry in the United Kingdom is currently being called upon by various corners to improve its safety standards. There are a variety of reasons why this happening ranging from increased focus from the government on health and safety concerns to an awakening of sorts within the industry with regard to hazards on a construction site. One of the fallouts of this emphasis on health and safety on the construction site is that construction companies, small and large, are trying to enrol their employees into SMSTS courses.

What Are SMSTS Courses?

In a nutshell, SMSTS (Site Management Safety Training Scheme) courses impart the know-how of managing health and safety concerns at a project site. These are courses that became crucial to the construction industry on the back of new Construction Regulations that were introduced to the industry in 2007 and are specified on the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) website. Site Management Safety Training Scheme courses are mainly provided by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), although there are third-party organisations that have accreditation from them to provide the courses.

What Is The Purpose Of SMSTS Courses?

As mentioned above, the purpose of these courses is to make professionals in the construction industry realise the importance of good health and safety procedures on the construction site and also become cognisant of other benefits of the same. Typically, these courses will teach an industry professional to be able to manage health and safety-related concerns on a project site in addition to their other abilities. More importantly, the courses focus heavily on compliance requirements from the government with regard to health and safety on construction sites.

In order to achieve these objectives, goals, and aims, these courses tend to be fairly detailed on the subject of health and safety. These courses, hence, emphasise heavily on the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 and the aforementioned Construction Design and Management (CDM) Regulations of 2007. In addition to this, the courses incorporate other crucial elements such as the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) principles and advice. Generically speaking, these courses will teach professional safety requirements and practices related to all processes on a construction site including confined spaces, fire hazard, electricity risks, and even scaffolding problems.

What Are The Different Types Of SMSTS Courses?

Simply speaking, Site Management Safety Training Scheme courses tend to be same all over the country. However, this similarity is from the perspective of content and curriculum. These courses can vary in type if you consider their durations, though. You can find Site Management Safety Training Scheme courses being provided in the distance format to five-day-long intensive training modules with one day and two-day programs available too.

The courses usually end with an exam at the end which the student has to pass to receive his Site Management Safety Training Scheme certificate. It’s important to note that an SMSTS certification is only valid for a period of five years after which the professional has to come back for a refresher course which can be considered to be another type of these courses.

Who Should You Send From Your Company?

These courses are not suitable for every professional involved in the construction industry. They are categorically designed for supervisors, site managers, and project managers. In addition, they can be suitable for owners of small to medium-scaled companies operating in the construction industry as well. Often, these courses are used by professionals as a Launchpad for improving their knowledge, skills, and credentials which, in turn, results in better job prospects. For instance, many professionals are known to enrol themselves into the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) construction certificate after completing their SMSTS course.

How Should You Choose The Right SMSTS Course?

There is no dearth of websites and brick and mortar organisations offering these courses in the United Kingdom. This can pose the problem of finding the right option for many small to medium scale construction organisations. Broadly, there are four different elements you’ll have to consider while trying to choose the right provider of an SMSTS course. These are whether the provider has accreditation or not, what kind of qualification its tutors have, what is the period of the course, and how much it costs. The cost of the course is usually in the range of 500 Pounds, although there can be a slight deviation from one provider to another depending upon the kind of services and the duration of the courses.

Why Do You Need To Keep Records Of Employees With This Training?

It’s very important for a company to keep a record of the SMSTS training that it provides to its employees. The reason for this is that after a period of five years, the employees are required to take a refresher course so as to keep their certificates valid. This can be a difficult task especially if the company has more than a single employee with such certifications. In fact, without the company maintaining such records, each employee will have to keep track of his own expiry period.

Moreover, certain government and even some private projects have started disqualifying construction firms that do not employ project managers with SMSTS certifications because of the way the country is focusing on health and safety norms. While tendering or applying for work for these projects, the applying company may be required to provide cards of its SMSTS certified project managers as enclosures. This can be problematic for a company that doesn’t keep copies of the SMSTS certificates that its employees received after completing their SMSTS courses.

The best way to resolve these minor difficulties is for construction companies to ensure that the construction project management software program that they’re using has modules designed for doing this work. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about this with BuilderStorm. Inside our unique and revolutionary construction project management software program is our training compliance module where you can maintain records of expiry dates and even keep copies of SMSTS certificates of your employees.