The Manual Task Program stops workplace injuries with training and risk strategies tailored to your team’s daily tasks. Our team doesn’t just talk safety — we step into your worksite, document real tasks and build training that sticks.
Teach your crew to spot risks instantly, move safely and lift right with hands-on demos and no jargon guides that turn theory into action. Watch injuries drop as habits shift — protecting health, slashing downtime and keeping your business thriving.
With over a third of workplace injuries associated with manual tasks, we guide employees through best practices for lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, or holding a load, object or person. To ensure our education helps to protect an employee’s fitness for work, we tailor training to cover duties specific to each workplace.
Our allied health professionals assess the physical demands unique to each role and each workplace, then tailor training to cover the impact of duties specific to each work situation, with particular attention paid to impacts on employee musculoskeletal functioning. Our Manual Task Program aims to empower employees to take responsibility for their own safety and physical wellbeing, covering:
Manual task risk factors include forceful exertions, awkward and static postures, vibration, repetition, and duration.
The importance of risk assessments in relation to lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, carrying, moving, holding, or restraining any person, animal or thing.
Safe methods of lifting, pushing, pulling and carrying - focusing on correct postures, positioning and breathing.
Risk factors for workplace-specific issues such as Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, Occupational Overuse Syndrome and shoulder injuries.
The importance of stretching, strengthening, sleep and diet to injury prevention.
A discussion of manual task practises specific to your work environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our manual handling programs teach safe techniques for lifting, pushing, and pulling tasks, reducing workplace injury risks. With experts across Australia, Altius' tailored education empowers employees to take charge of their safety and physical wellbeing.
Proper manual handling reduces the risk of injuries related to lifting, pushing, and pulling tasks. Altius' manual handling education programs, available nationwide, provide employees with safe techniques and preventative strategies to minimise injury risks, keeping workplaces safer and more productive.
A manual task is any job where a worker uses their body to lift, lower, push, pull, carry, move, hold or restrain a person, animal or object as part of their work.
In most workplaces, this includes everyday activities like moving stock, pushing trolleys, helping a patient to move, holding equipment in place or carrying tools and materials. Altius Manual Task Training focuses on these real tasks, with particular attention to how they affect employees’ musculoskeletal health and fitness for work. Training is tailored to the specific duties and physical demands of each workplace, so examples reflect what your people actually do on site.
Workers who perform manual handling tasks need training that is relevant to their role, explains the risks of hazardous manual tasks and teaches safe techniques to control those risks.
This typically includes education about manual task risk factors, the importance of risk assessments, safe lifting, pushing, pulling and carrying methods and practical demonstrations that help employees apply safer techniques in their daily work. Altius allied health professionals first assess the physical demands of each role and then tailor training to the duties and loads specific to each work situation, so training content directly matches the tasks employees perform.
Manual task training should include both education on risk factors and hands-on practice in safer movement techniques.
Altius Manual Task Training generally covers:
Common manual task risk factors such as forceful exertions, awkward and static postures, vibration, repetition and task duration.
The importance of risk assessments for lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, carrying, moving, holding or restraining any person, animal or thing.
Safe methods of lifting, pushing, pulling and carrying, with a focus on posture, positioning and breathing.
Risk factors for workplace-specific issues such as carpal tunnel syndrome, occupational overuse and shoulder injuries.
The role of stretching, strengthening, sleep and diet in injury prevention and maintaining fitness for work.
Group discussion of manual task practices and challenges specific to each work environment.
This structure turns theory into practical, workplace-specific habits that protect employees’ health and reduce injury risk. In some workplaces, training is complemented by ergonomic assessments or broader WHS system work, so task design and equipment also support safer manual work.
Yes. Altius works with businesses nationally and can support remote and multi-site teams with manual handling training.
Manual Task Training is designed for organisations of all sizes across Australia. Training is tailored to each workplace, and Altius consultants can assess physical demands, design role specific content and deliver education across multiple locations. For remote or distributed teams, delivery can be planned around site access, shift patterns and different work environments so all employees receive consistent guidance on safer manual tasks, even if their day-to-day roles look slightly different.
Manual handling training should be refreshed regularly to maintain safe habits, address new risks and ensure employees stay up to date.
The exact interval will depend on your risk profile, workforce turnover and any changes to tasks or equipment. Many organisations schedule refreshers every one to two years, with more frequent updates in higher risk roles or after significant changes to work practices. Because Altius Manual Task Training is tailored to each workplace, refresher sessions can focus on new or emerging issues identified through incident investigations, claims data or WHS reviews, rather than repeating the same content every time.
WHS legislation requires employers to manage the risks associated with hazardous manual tasks, and providing appropriate training is a key way to meet this duty.
The law does not usually prescribe a specific course or format, but regulators expect businesses to identify hazardous manual tasks and put effective controls in place. Training that explains risk factors, safe techniques and workplace-specific practices is an important part of those controls. Altius Manual Task Training supports compliance by educating workers about risk, demonstrating safe methods for lifting, carrying, pushing and pulling and reinforcing the role of risk assessments and good work design in preventing injury.
In higher risk environments, this training can be combined with workplace health and safety services, so manual tasks are managed from both a systems and skills perspective.
Manual handling training typically ranges from a focused toolbox-style session to a more comprehensive workshop that runs over several hours, depending on your needs and risk profile.
The Altius approach is to tailor session length to the complexity of tasks, the size of the group, and the level of behaviour change you want to achieve. Shorter sessions can be effective for refreshers or simple task profiles, while longer programs allow more time for observation of tasks, hands-on practice, discussion of workplace-specific issues and integration with wider safety initiatives. Altius allied health professionals can recommend an appropriate format once they understand your roles, tasks and operational constraints.
Yes. Manual Task Training is designed to be delivered onsite at your workplace. Altius allied health professionals step into the worksite, observe and document real tasks and build training around the way your employees actually lift, carry, push, pull and hold loads. This onsite approach allows trainers to see physical demands first hand, review existing practices, use your equipment and spaces in demonstrations and discuss practical changes that fit your specific work environment. It also tends to support better engagement because employees can see the direct relevance of what they are learning.
Yes. Customised, role-specific manual handling training is a core feature of Altius Manual Task Training.
Consultants assess the physical demands unique to each role and each workplace and then tailor sessions to the duties, loads and postures that are most common in your environment. That might include repetitive production line work, awkward reaches in confined spaces, patient handling, frequent vehicle loading or any other manual pattern that carries risk. This customised approach helps ensure the training is relevant and meaningful for employees in different roles, from frontline manual workers to support and clinical staff.
A manual task risk assessment involves identifying manual tasks that may be hazardous, analysing the risk factors involved and then determining controls to reduce the likelihood of injury.
Practically, this usually includes:
Observing how tasks are performed, including lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, carrying, moving, holding or restraining people, animals or objects.
Identifying risk factors such as high force, awkward or static postures, repetition, vibration and long duration.
Considering who is exposed, how often and under what conditions.
Evaluating existing controls and whether they are effective in managing the risk.
Recommending improvements, which might include changes to task design, equipment, work organisation and training content.
Altius allied health professionals incorporate findings from these assessments into Manual Task Training, so employees learn safer techniques that reflect the actual risks present in their workplace. The same insights can also inform broader WHS improvements, such as ergonomic adjustments or updates to your safety management system.
