Last month, we talked about preventing falls from elevations in your shipyard. But there are also concerns about falls from the same level within a marine environment. Following OSHA guidelines and preventing falls, slips, and trips that occur when someone may be rushing or not paying attention is critical to your team’s safety. It’s imperative in any environment to ensure that hazards are not present that could increase falls from the same level. Here are a few ways you can safeguard workers from same-level falls.
What Causes Same-Level Falls?
Same-level falls are different from falls from elevations. They are most likely caused by poor housekeeping, lack of walkways, workers not paying attention, or wet surfaces. This means focusing on prevention should be the key factor moving forward.
Create a Safety Policy
The first step is to develop a safety policy. This should specifically encompass slips, trips, and falls from the same level. What should an employee do if they see a hazard? What should they do if they slip, even if they don’t think they are injured? Make all of these clear within your handbook.
Perform Regular Safety Inspections
Since preventable hazards often cause these falls, your safety team must perform regular inspections of the worksite. Water can be difficult to prevent within a shipyard environment, but there are other ways to mitigate risk.
Provide Training
With safety policies in place, you need to reinforce the information with regular training. This begins with new employee orientation, but it doesn’t end there. Regular safety training that includes what to do if a hazard is spotted needs to be reinforced regularly.
Practice Accountability
All employees, workers and supervisors alike, can be watchdogs for safety in the workplace. There should be a level of accountability for all. This includes reprimand when it’s determined that someone caused a hazard and rewards for the employee who discovered and reported a potential hazard before an accident occurred.
Are you interested in partnering with a specialized staffing agency that makes safety a top priority?
Contact the recruiting team at Hutco to see what we’re working on today.
