Here at Shepherds Friendly Society we make as much effort as we can to give back to our members of staff for all the hard work they do. This can be through our excellent staff benefits or the regular financial workshops we hold, but we also like to offer them the chance to learn certain skills they can use outside as well as inside the office.
We have recently started a “putting you first” campaign for our staff members, offering life skills and information to keep all our staff healthy and happy in and out of work. We have covered heart health, healthy eating and are now looking at safety training.
As part of the campaign we teamed up with Manchester First Aid Training to help some of our staff members learn the basics of first aid.
What we learned
Lead by the wonderful head trainer Jo-anne, we learnt how to administer CPR while singing “Nelly the Elephant” to keep time! Once we had been taught the basics, we spent time practising the technique on the state of the art first aid dummies Jo-anne provided. Although it was hard work (moving your arms for so long can get tiring!) it was very informative and hands on, and we all learnt a lot about not just how to administer CPR, but what it does to the heart and how it affects the body.
We also covered what to do if someone is choking, how to treat burns and how to put people in the recovery position. These are skills that can be used in everyday life and can be, quite literally, life saving.
How it helped
First aid training is an invaluable skill that can help you look after your family and others around you. Most of our staff members who took part had no kind of experience at all in first aid, and no idea how they would even begin to use CPR or how it can help people. Once Jo-anne was able to explain the basics and everyone was able to practise, every member of staff felt much more comfortable with the idea of CPR and more confident in the knowledge that they would be able to help someone even a little bit if something were to go wrong.
What our staff members thought
Customer service representative, Patricia, who took part in the half day course said:
“I thought the course was very informative and gave me the confidence to try and help someone in an emergency situation. To quote the trainer ‘it’s better to do something than nothing’”.
Maxine, finance administrator at Shepherds Friendly, also said:
“I thoroughly enjoyed the First Aid Training, our trainer Jo-anne was very informative and good fun. She managed to get us all involved in practising CPR on various training manikins ranging from babies up to adults. I didn’t have any First Aid Training knowledge prior to the course, but I now feel confident that I could perform CPR if the need ever arose.”
Are you interested in first aid training?
If you are interested in learning some essential first aid skills, Manchester First Aid Training offers individual and group courses around Manchester and the North West. To learn more information and visit their website, click here.
Shepherds Friendly Society gets even safer
In October, our staff will be learning more life saving skills when they have a visit from a local company who will provide fire safety training for both home and work.
