Health and safety is important in all workplaces, but it’s absolutely critical in warehousing, logistics and distribution. These can be dangerous environments if risks aren’t carefully managed.
But avoiding accidents and injuries isn’t the only reason to invest time and money into improving the safety of your workplace. The wellbeing of your staff is also important, and can affect everything from productivity to employee retention.
Thinking of ramping up your warehouse health and safety efforts in 2022? Here’s how you can go above and beyond the legally required measures…
- Give employee inductions a makeover
Warehouse inductions are often brief and cursory, seen sometimes as just a box-ticking exercise. But in fact, the induction is where a new hire learns critical information about the layout of the warehouse which can aid them in an emergency. This includes the location of fire exits and fire alarms, potential hazards to avoid and much more. The more familiar they are with the setup, the safer they’ll be during work hours.
- Invest in training
Think you don’t need to train workers who’ve been in post for years? Think again, as these are exactly the people who can make mistakes due to complacency. One of the best ways to keep their skills and awareness sharp is regular safety training. You’ll need to put a rigorous training programme together, for both new hires and existing staff, and make sure you stick to it.
- Refresh your PPE
Has your staff personal protective equipment (PPE) seen better days? It could be a good idea to introduce a regular or annual audit, and replace items that no longer provide the protection they’re designed for.
If in doubt, it’s best to play it safe and overequip your workers with PPE. And make sure everyone has hi-vis or reflective clothing, so they are clearly visible wherever they are in the building.
- Review your machinery and equipment procedures
How often does your machinery get serviced? If you don’t know or it was a long time ago, this is a serious red flag. Machinery and heavy equipment is one of the biggest risks in a warehousing environment, so it needs to be properly maintained. Get back on track by doing the following:
- Putting a service agreement in place
- Assess the condition of all machinery and arrange for necessary repairs to be carried out immediately
- Review the licence requirements for anyone operating machinery and vehicles on the warehouse floor – if licences are out of date, take urgent action.
- Give your team a break
Another important thing to check is how regularly your employees are taking a break, and how long they rest for. Not everyone takes their allocated breaks, and a tired machine operator could easily suffer a loss of concentration – which could lead to an accident. You can also improve breakout spaces, to make them more pleasant and comfortable to spend time in. Lastly, look at bringing in anti-fatigue matting and other measures to improve on-the-job comfort.
Planning to hire warehouse staff, or searching for a new role in logistics? Get in touch with the experts at Aqumen Recruitment – we can find just what you’re looking for.