As one of the most common causes of office injuries, slips, trips, and falls can affect all of us. As business owners, it’s important we take steps to protect our employees and the public, and it’s important employees take the necessary steps to protect themselves and others around them.
There are many different ways slips, trips, and falls occur, but the main thing is, many of them are avoidable. As a business, you have a responsibility to keep those who come into contact with your company safe, and looking out for these causes of slips, trips, and falls is a good place to start.
1. Poor Lighting
It goes without saying that if you can’t see where you’re going, you’re more likely to trip and fall. This might seem like something that’s easy to take care of, but when you own a big premises, with lots of lights, it’s easy for a few bulbs to blow, leaving certain areas without enough light.
To stop this happening, it’s important to train your staff on the importance of health and safety and get them to report any areas that might not be properly lit. Once you know about the problem, you can go about fixing it, but if people walk through the area without saying anything, then you might not know about the problem for weeks.
2. The Wrong Mats
Your business needs the right non-slip floor coverings in order to protect the people who come into contact with it. We’ve all walked over a mat that’s slipped beneath our feet before, and this can be extremely dangerous.
If you consider the complexities of your business, where you have many different people performing different tasks throughout the day, then you need to make sure you have the right types of floor matting in each area of the business. Speak to experts like First Mats to find out how to improve your health and safety.
3. Damaged Floor Surfaces
No matter how good your mats are, people are still going to be at risk if you have damaged floor surfaces. Just one cracked tile can represent a serious trip hazard and it needs to be cordoned off and fixed as soon as possible.
Again, emphasizing the importance of reporting these hazards is vital if you’re going to be able to spot the danger and fix it quickly.
4. Poor House Keeping
Slips, trips and, falls can be caused by the most basic things. If items are left in walkways or liquids are spilled without being cleaned up, then it’s very easy for a slip, trip, or fall to happen.
Something as simple as someone leaving a backpack by a door can lead to an unsuspecting client tripping over it and sustaining an injury. This is bad for everyone involved and all for the sake of a backpack being left on the floor for a few minutes.
Make sure that your business is fostering an awareness of good health and safety practices and help limit these risks.