Accidents are to be expected in your industry. When your operations require workers to perform tasks at height, the risk for accidents could go up. Hazardous incidents, however, can be prevented, and your organisation’s safety performance improved.
Safety performance not only reduces the potential accidents in your workplace, enabling you to provide reasonable protection for your workers, it also allows you to limit the costs that come with delayed projects caused by injuries at work. Safety performance also helps your business manage the cost of potential legal action, noncompliance of work-at-height regulations and other similar liabilities.
Invest in Equipment
An effective preventive measure is an investment in appropriate equipment for work-at-height tasks. This investment need not be prohibitive. You can control costs while still ensuring the safety of your workers. For example, you can rent a cherry picker for work areas requiring temporary access.
Mobile elevated work platforms, such as a cherry picker, provide efficient access to construction, maintenance and other applications. The right elevated platform for the appropriate task and site can deliver efficiency, safety and productivity. Premier Platforms recommends electric boom lifts for indoor work and diesel-powered lifts for outdoor projects.
Provide Training
The right machinery, however, cannot guarantee safety without the proper training. Your workers should know how to operate or work on boom lifts. The Health and Safety Executive includes training and competence in its guide to managing mobile elevated work platform hazards. Operators in the UK should have completed a training course and received the appropriate licence or certificate.
When you provide your workers with the relevant training, you also secure compliance with existing regulations as well as keep the accidents to a minimum.
You have chosen the right equipment and provided training for your workers. The road to risk management where work at height is concerned does not stop at these two decisions. You also need to create a plan that considers the weather condition, emergency procedures and the work area.
A combination of these things should give you the best strategy for preventing falls from height to keeping your workers safe and, naturally, giving your business better risk management.
