Achtung! Attenzione! Hear What Your European Colleagues Have to Say About Slips and Trips

In keeping with yesterday’s international perspective on slips, trips, and falls, today we present some safety tips continental-style, courtesy of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. These tips focus on 10 key issues.

• Good housekeeping. Make sure employees keep their work areas clean and tidy, with floors and access routes kept clear of obstacles. See to it that trash and scrap are regularly removed so that they don’t build up and create slip, trip, and fall hazards.
• Cleaning and maintenance. Follow up with your maintenance department to make sure cleaning methods and equipment are suitable for the surface being treated. Also make sure all walking surfaces are maintained in good, safe condition, inside and out.
• Lighting. Ensure good lighting levels, positioning lights to ensure all floor areas are evenly lit and all potential hazards, obstructions, and spills can be clearly seen.
• Floors. Check for damage regularly and see to it that maintenance and repairs are carried out when necessary. Potential hazards include holes, cracks, and loose carpets and mats. Floor surfaces should also be suitable for the work carried out. For example, they may need to be resistant to oil and chemicals used in production processes. Coating or chemically treating existing floors can improve their slip-resistant properties.

---

Need to train employees to prevent slips, trips, and falls? Get both CBT interactive and PowerPoint^® programs in BLR’s Total Training Resource: Slips, Trips & Falls. Try it at no cost. Click for details.

---

• Stairways. Handrails, slip-resistant treads, high-visibility and nonslip marking of the front edges of steps, and good lighting can all help to prevent slips and trips on stairs.
• Spills. Make sure employees clean up spills immediately, using an appropriate cleaning method. Require warning signs on wet floors, and arrange alternate temporary routes for workers to follow.
• Obstructions. Whenever possible, obstructions should simply be removed. If this is not possible, suitable barriers and warning signs should be used.
• Cords and cables. Place equipment so that cords and cables do not cross walkways. Use cable covers to securely fix cables to surfaces.
• Footwear. Make sure workers wear suitable footwear. Take account of the type of job, floor surface, typical floor conditions, and the slip-resistant properties of the soles.
• Outdoor workplaces.  Arrange outdoor areas to minimize risks—for example, by using antislip measures in icy conditions and having outdoor workers wear suitable footwear.

---

Try Total Training Resource: Slips, Trips & Falls at no cost or risk. Click for info.

---

When We Say "Total," We Mean Total!

According to the U.S. government, hundreds of thousands of workers in the United States sustain nonfatal injuries from slips, trips, and falls every year, each resulting in 1 or more days away from work.

Don’t let your employees become statistics because they aren’t aware of slip, trip, and fall hazards, or because they haven’t been adequately trained to prevent these accidents.

With BLR’s Total Training Resource: Slips, Trips & Falls you get expertly developed slips, trips, and falls training materials that include interactive computer-based training (CBT), PowerPoint training meetings, checklists, handouts, and much more—all on one CD!

It’s easy to customize your slips, trips, and falls training to match the needs of your audience with all these ready-to-use training materials.

By the way, Total Training Resource doesn’t just offer slips, trips, and falls training. All together this essential training resource offers 12 titles representing critical safety issues. Other titles include:

• Back Safety
• Electrical Safety
• Machine Guarding
• Bloodborne Pathogens
• Confined Spaces
• Drug-Free Workplace
• Hazard Communication
• Lockout/Tagout
• PPE
• Sexual Harassment
• Workplace Violence

We strongly recommend the slips, trips, and falls program and the entire Total Training Resource library.But don’t take our word for it. Judge for yourself by trying it with your own workers for a month. Click here and we’ll arrange it.

 

More Articles on Injuries and Illness