Warehouse Safety Is No Accident

by David Schek | Jul 1, 2014 | News, Warehouse Safety, Workers Comp, Workers' Compensation Insurance

Careful planning and a dedication to safety are top priorities for keeping warehouse workers injury-free. Here is your no-slip, no-trip, ergonomically correct guide to warehouse safety.

Where most warehouse visitors simply see shelves, pallets, and boxes, Dixie Brock sees danger. In fact, Brock glimpses danger wherever she looks.

It’s not that she is easily frightened or overly cautious. Brock sees danger because it is a key part of her job as national safety and workers compensation manager for APL Logistics, an Oakland, Calif.-based transportation services provider that manages more than 100 warehouses worldwide.

“I constantly analyze accidents,” Brock says. “I study them, search for causes, and try to find ways to prevent them.”

More warehouse operators need to think like Brock, says Gary Gagliardi, vice president of Safety Resources, a safety consulting firm located in Indianapolis. While companies tend to focus their safety efforts on manufacturing sites and transport vehicles, warehouses also require attention, he says.

Yet, when it comes to warehouse safety, employees and management often tug in different directions. “Workers concentrate on going home with their fingers and toes intact,” Gagliardi says.

“Managers are also concerned about safety, but they focus more on where the company is headed, and how profitable it can be.”

To make sure that a warehouse is both safe and efficient, managers and workers need to pull together to spot dangerous practices and plan ways to eliminate threats.

“Companies need a culture of safety,” says Gagliardi. “Creating a safe work environment requires a good deal of effort, but it brings benefits to both workers and management.”

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

Warehouse mishaps tend to be less severe than most manufacturing- and transportation-related accidents. Yet a series of relatively minor incidents can still seriously injure employees and lead to lost productivity, higher insurance bills, and government fines.

“The primary injuries occurring in a warehouse stem from lifting, straining, and turning,” says Joel Anderson, president and CEO of the International Warehouse Logistics Association, a non-profit organization based in Des Plaines, Ill., that represents more than 500 third-party warehouse and logistics service providers.

Similarly, APL reports these top three injury categories at its warehouses:

1. Slips, trips, and falls.
2. Ergonomic-related pains such as lifting, reaching, pulling, and pushing.
3. Material handling incidents such as dropped boxes and forklift accidents.

Although not particularly severe, warehouse accidents are numerous—the warehousing and storage industry experiences nearly 15,000 injuries and illnesses each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

To keep a lid on accidents, warehouse operators should stress worker training and establish safety best practices, says Bob Shaunnessey, executive director of the Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC), an Oak Brook, Ill.-based organization dedicated to warehouse management and its role in the supply chain.

For most warehouses, forming a safety committee is the first step toward implementing enhanced safety procedures.

A safety committee’s members are usually selected from specific organizational groups—including warehouse floor workers, shift supervisors, and department managers. This approach gives everyone a voice, but keeps the committee’s size to an effective number of participants.

“Safety committees are a common practice,” says Shaunnessey. “In most cases, when management supports the committee, workers are likely to gain a safe work environment.”

Safety committees should not be confused with safety meetings. A safety meeting usually includes all floor employees, as well as a management representative, to ensure that key issues are addressed.

“Typically, a safety committee is an effective safety management tool for large employers, and safety meetings are effective for small employers,” notes Shaunnessey.

OSHA’S IMPACT

One pivotal player in warehouse safety is the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal agency responsible for ensuring safe workplaces.

OSHA exists to make sure businesses that do not take safety seriously won’t imperil their employees. Many warehouse operators take a skeptical view of OSHA, believing they can maintain a safe working environment without government oversight.

Warehouse operators that maintain a safe workplace generally have little to fear from OSHA, says Alex Sierra, health, safety, and environmental manager for Fluor Constructors, the construction arm of Irving, Texas-based engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance service company Fluor.

“Warehouse managers need to realize that investing in OSHA compliance, and safety in general, is a smart move,” says Sierra. “The average cost of a recordable injury in the United States is $35,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This expense directly impacts a company’s bottom line, as well as workers’ compensation and productivity costs.”

The best way to avoid becoming entangled with OSHA is by not attracting attention to your organization.

“If companies report recurring accidents, or other problems that attract OSHA’s attention, they are usually inspected,” Shaunnessey says. “During an inspection, OSHA may find unsafe practices and require the employer to correct them. If inspectors find egregious safety violations, they often impose fines.”

Warehouse operators who comply with OSHA safety guidelines don’t have much to worry about, says Gagliardi of Safety Resources.

“Generally, unless a ‘red flag’ pops up, OSHA does not have the manpower or the time to inspect a lot of warehouses,” he explains.

SAFETY SAVINGS

An emphasis on safety can generate cost savings—both direct and indirect. Warehouse operators who take the time to analyze their safety training and practices can reap financial benefits, says Patrick Floyd, senior executive vice president of operations for Total Logistic Control (TLC), a third-party logistics provider headquartered in Zeeland, Mich.

TLC, which operates 83 distribution centers nationwide, implemented a comprehensive safety plan that generated fast and measurable results.

“TLC reduced its recordable incident rate from 11.5 in 2000 to 3.63 in 2006,” notes Floyd. “This helped reduce workers’ compensation costs from $2.53 per man-hour to 30 cents per man-hour.”

The 3PL also makes safety an essential responsibility of its facility managers, office managers, and other supervisory personnel.

“Our managers’ annual key performance indicators are based upon how well their facilities comply with OSHA, safety, and process improvement,” Floyd says. “They cannot ignore safety concerns. If they do, it affects their performance as a leader and it affects their compensation.”

To keep safety top of mind for employees, training needs to touch on all key areas that affect warehouse safety, notes Brock. APL, for instance, offers separate programs on topics including slips and falls, forklift operation, heat exhaustion, ergonomics, and hazardous materials.

“Safety is not separate from what warehouse employees do every day,” she says. “Safety is a key aspect of how they do their job, and that’s the mindset they must have.

Please contact me at david@StaffingCompSolutions.com for a workers compensation quote and visit us at www.StaffingCompSolutions.com

All the best
David Schek
President
StaffingCompSolutions.com
American Staffing Association Member
ASA Exhibitor for Annual 2014 Conference
California Staffing Association Member