Top 12 Workplace Dangers of Christmas

“On the first day of Christmas, my employer gave to me…” Give your staff the gift of safety this Christmas. It’s cheap, you don’t have to wrap it, and they will definitely appreciate it.

We don’t want to sound like a Scrooge, but Christmas can be a dangerous time of year for the British workplace. The pace of work gets faster and attitudes get laxer, as sales increase and staff start seeing their Christmas time off fast approaching. Employees might stop thinking about rack inspection training and start thinking about mince pies, warm sherry, and the Doctor Who Christmas special.

So, just to make sure that everyone is driving home for Christmas in one piece, here are twelve workplace dangers to watch out for during this wonderful time of the year.

1. Cold Workplaces

A cold workplace isn’t just annoying; it can be dangerous. It is because of this that HSE suggests how cold they think a workplace should be. For most workplaces, HSE recommends a minimum temperature of 16 degrees Celsius. However, if the work involves “rigorous physical effort”, then HSE suggests a minimum temperature of 13 degrees Celsius. HSE also points out that these temperatures are not a legal requirement. It is ultimately the responsibility of the employer to decide how cold is too cold.

2. Icy and Wet Floors

Even if you’ve got the temperature of your workplace right, the cold can still wreak havoc on your floors. Wet floors in sub-zero conditions can become icy floors and accidents are often not far behind. HSE has plenty of advice on how to avoid slips, trips, and falls on slippery floors. However, here’s a brief summary of what you can do.

• Both icy floors and wet floors should be dealt with immediately after they are discovered.
• Preventative measures should be taken to stop floors from being slippery in the first place.
• Workers can also take precautions themselves to avoid slipping (i.e. wearing the right footwear and not running).

3. Flus, Colds, and the Sniffles

Yet another danger of the cold workplace is the illness it can spread. During the colder months of the year, it’s likely that most of your employees will have a runny nose and a mild cough. This is the sniffles and, thankfully, your employees can probably soldier on through it.

However, when you have a whole group of people spending all day together, swapping germs with each other, and running their immune systems into the ground with Christmas overtime in a cold workplace, the sniffles can develop into something more sinister. Fortunately, the NHS has plenty of advice on how to stop the flu from spreading, as well as guidelines on stopping the spread of germs in general.

4. Overloaded Racking And No Rack Inspection Training

For most businesses, Christmas is the busiest time of the year. However, while all of that extra business is hardly a bad thing, it can bring with it some unintended downsides.

More sales mean more stock and more stock means a higher risk of overloaded racking systems. It is during December that rack inspection training from a SEMA approved rack inspector is most important.

But it’s not enough to rely on just an annual inspection from a SEMA approved racking inspector. HSE also recommends regular racking inspections from someone with knowledge of pallet racking systems. During the Christmas quarter, when racking is taken to its limit with tonnes of new stock, pallet racking inspections from staff who have received pallet racking inspection training becomes vital.

5. MSDs and Injuries from Bad Lifting

Musculoskeletal disorders are the result of bad lifting and one of the most common workplace ailments. During the Christmas period, with new stock flooding into a business, more employees are lifting more objects more frequently than at any other time of the year. As a result, the risk of MSDs or a more instant injury — such as a pulled muscle — increases exponentially. Fortunately, there is plenty of advice out there on how to lift properly and safely.

6. A Busy Shop Floor

When there is a potential danger on your shop floor — whether that’s because of a slippery surface, because something has fallen, or because something could be about to fall — sorting it out as quickly as possible is imperative. However, when your shop is busy, these dangers are much more frequent as customers themselves may bump into things and create problems. More customers mean more potential accidents, so make sure everything is ship-shape.

7. Opportunistic Thieves and Shoplifters

It’s as sad as it is true that some people take advantage of the confusion of the Christmas crowds in order to steal things. Shoplifting has a nasty habit of increasing during the Christmas period, so be wary.

8. Agitated Customers

Whether it’s because of lengthy queues or the aforementioned shoplifting, tensions can run high during Christmas shopping. Customers can get angry and, when they do, accidents can happen. Remember that it is the season to be jolly and try to keep everyone calm and safe — staff and customers alike.

9. Distracted Staff

Christmas is coming up, so being the kind boss that you are, you give your staff a little bit of leeway here and there. There’s Christmas music playing throughout the building, a few guys are wearing Santa hats, and everyone relaxes a little bit.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with any of this. Far be it from anyone to deny hardworking employees a little Christmas joy. Still, it’s worth remembering that, whatever concessions you decide to give your employees, be sure that safety still remains a top priority.

10. Hungover Staff

Christmas can be a pretty boozy time of year, and it’s important to take precautions. All that mulled wine may have seemed like a good idea at Jerry’s pre-Christmas get-together, but now it’s 7:30am and you wish the bus to work would just burst into a ball of flames.

Being hungover at work might seem hilarious if you’re young or work at a desk, but any kind of physical labour becomes difficult at best and fatally dangerous at worse. Don’t let it slip through the net. If an employee arrives at work noticeably hungover, send them home. If they made the extremely dangerous and potentially illegal decision to drive to work, be certain that they don’t drive back.

11. Christmas Decorations

A Christmas without decorations is hardly Christmas at all. Still, while all those boughs of holly may look lovely, it’s important to know that they’re safe. Risk assessments are a necessity at any workplace and during Christmas, when your workplace has the potential to be filled with fairy lights, dancing Santas, and a smorgasbord of other decorations, it’s time for another quick risk assessment. It would be the harshest of ironies if your decorations, designed to bring people cheer, ended up injuring someone because they were placed in an inconvenient or dangerous location. Be safe and give each decoration a thorough once over; a decent risk assessment goes a long, long way.

12. Forgetting Your Annual SEMA Approved Rack Inspection!

It’s getting towards the end of the year and you’re certain you’ve forgotten something. Still, it’s Christmas now — the busiest quarter for your business — so whatever it is will have to wait until next year, right?

Wrong. HSE recommends a SEMA approved rack inspection from a SEMA approved rack inspector at least once a year for good reason. Ideally, your annual rack inspection should be performed before Christmas, when any issues can be dealt with before your racking is loaded with a huge amount of Christmas stock. If you put your rack inspection off longer than a year, you run against HSE’s advice. With the new CDM regulations, this makes you solely responsible for any accidents that might occur as a result of putting off your annual SEMA approved rack inspection.

Christmas is a stressful time of year and there’s almost no avoiding that. However, with our advice, at least your Christmas will be a safe one.

Give your staff, your customers, and yourself the gift of safety this year with a racking inspection by a SEMA approved inspector from Storage Equipment Experts.

November 5th is fast approaching, but without regular pallet racking inspections, Bonfire Night would be a very dangerous holiday

Fireworks can be extremely dangerous. When you light that fuse, you are essentially starting a controlled explosion. Without government oversight and HSE regulations on fireworks, they’d be nothing but glorified grenades!

However, before fireworks can even get into our hands, they have to be stored properly, and this is no mean feat. Without regular pallet racking inspections, a warehouse full of fireworks is a disaster waiting to happen.

Remember, Remember… Regular Pallet Racking Inspections

Consider where you buy your fireworks from: giant warehouses filled to the brim with explosives. Now imagine what would happen if, for whatever reason, a stray spark flew in the wrong direction. Imagine what would happen if somebody was just a little clumsy. Imagine what would happen without regular pallet racking inspections.

For those working in one of the many firework warehouses in Liuyang, China, imagination is not necessary. Liuyang produces 60 percent of the fireworks sold in China’s $600 million a year fireworks industry. However, those fireworks aren’t just blown up in China; 95 percent of fireworks used in the US are from China.

In other words, Liuyang fireworks are an international phenomenon and, as such, their safety needs to be assured. Unfortunately, though, this is not always the case. Explosions, injuries, and — sadly — deaths in fireworks factories in Liuyang and across China are depressingly common.

China Needs Racking Inspection Regulations If It Wants to Remain the World’s Firework Producer

At the G20 this year, China attempted to demonstrate to the whole world that it was an economically developed global powerhouse that was open for business. However, though China has undoubtedly made immense progress in many areas, it is still plagued by human rights abuses, political corruption, censorship, and air pollution.

Added to all that, China remains an extremely dangerous place to work. One year after the Tianjin warehouse explosions in 2015 which killed 173 people, many critics argue that the government has not learnt its lesson. In order to become the sort of country that businesses can invest in with a clear conscience, China needs — among many other things — work safety regulations, such as racking inspection regulations.

What Can Pallet Racking Inspections Do for the Fireworks Industry?

Fireworks can be sold safely, but in order to do that, businesses selling fireworks need third-party pallet racking inspections from racking inspection experts to spot the dangers that your employees can’t. Pallet racking inspections in the UK are recommended by HSE at least once a year. Specifically, they recommend a SEMA racking inspection — a racking inspection from a SEMA approved racking inspector.

Initiatives like this from HSE are probably why workplace fatality rates have fallen by 86 percent. HSE made the right decision when it came to recommending safety inspections for businesses and, with regular pallet racking inspections, the fireworks industry in China could be much safer.

Pallet Racking Inspections Mean Certainty

When you’re storing fireworks, you cannot afford to take risks. A warehouse racking collapse this year in the UK made the headlines, and — thankfully — no-one was injured. In this case, however, the warehouse stored cheese. Cheese is soft, cheese is not very dense, and cheese is not explosive.

Fireworks, however, are explosive. They are extremely volatile and, without regular pallet racking inspections, there’s no telling when the next accident is going to happen. Just as pallet racking inspections are vital for the whisky industry, so too are they for the fireworks industry. The storage of fireworks is not something that can be left to chance. Regular pallet racking inspections from a SEMA approved racking inspector mean that it doesn’t need to be.

Fireworks stored in the British warehouses are in a safe condition precisely because of HSE’s recommendations on pallet racking inspections. Without this, a warehouse full of fireworks would be a ticking timebomb.

Whether you’re storing fireworks or anything else in your warehouse, it needs a pallet racking inspection as per HSE’s recommendations. So contact us today!

HSE’s pallet racking inspection requirements can be quite confusing to someone who is new to running a warehouse. That’s why we want to make things a little clearer.

As the British government’s main health and safety department, the racking inspection requirements HSE recommend are extremely important. The word “recommend” can sometimes lead to confusion, however, and this is problematic as it is a word used through HSE’s primary guide to warehouse safety.

It is based on this guide that a warehouse owner’s legal responsibilities towards the maintaining the safety of their warehouse are defined. That does not mean, however, that a warehouse owner needs to follow every single word of the document precisely in order to be on the right side of the law. At the beginning of the document, HSE make this short — but extremely important — caveat:

“This guidance is issued by the Health and Safety Executive. Following the guidance
is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the
guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law. Health and
safety inspectors seek to secure compliance with the law and may refer to this
guidance as illustrating good practice.”

In beginning their guide with this caveat, HSE give warehouse owners a lot of legal leeway. Why do they do this? And what does this mean? To understand, let’s take a step back and look at the CDM regulations and HSE’s stance on workplace safety in general.

“Reasonably Practicable”: Pallet Racking Inspection Requirements According to HSE

Since 1974, the broadest and simplest definition of responsibility under HSE law is as follows:

“Ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of yourself and others who may be affected by what you do or do not do.”

With regards to warehouse owners, this statement from HSE means that you need to make sure that anybody — not just your employees — who “affect by what you do or do not do” is safe in your warehouse. In other words, warehouse owners are legally obliged to ensure the safety of everyone who enters their warehouse “so far as is reasonably practicable”.

“Reasonably practicable” does not mean that you need to ensure the safety of everybody who enters your warehouse at all costs. For example, the safest way to guarantee the safety of everybody who works in your warehouse would be to dismantle all of your racking systems and send everybody home. This would certainly eliminate all risk, but it would be ludicrous to call it a racking inspection requirement.

“Reasonably practicable” means taking common sense advice and — in the case of racking inspection requirements — it means following HSE’s advice as outlined in HSG76, the document most relevant to warehouse health and safety.

Pallet Racking Inspection Requirements According to HSE’s HSG76

In HSG76, HSE recommend a racking inspection by a SEMA approved inspector at least once a year for all warehouses in the UK, as well as weekly racking inspections from a “technically competent” staff member. So is that recommendation legally binding?

No, it’s not. That’s what HSE means when they say “you are free to take other action”. However, HSE go on to state that “if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law”.

The new CDM regulations make all of this even clearer. Whereas before, the legal responsibility of the safety of employees share between HSE and the warehouse owner, now the onus is solely on the warehouse owner to ensure the safety of employees in their warehouse.

So, Is it a Legal Requirement to have an Annual Racking Inspection?

No.

However, in not having an annual racking inspection, employers and warehouse owners go against HSE’s advice. This means that if an accident related to racking were to happen, they would be both legally and morally responsible. In not having a racking inspection by a SEMA approved inspector, a person could argue that the warehouse owner did not ensure their safety “so far as is reasonably practicable”.

HSE, SEMA, and we at Storage Equipment Experts all recommend a racking inspection by a SEMA approved inspector at least once a year. We pride ourselves on our knowledge of pallet racking inspection requirements and on what makes a racking inspection by a SEMA approved inspector the HSE-approved protocol that it is.

Be sure to follow HSE’s advice and make sure your business has a racking inspection by a SEMA approved inspector.

Almost two years after the November 2014 SEMA safety conference, some people still believe that straightening damaged uprights is a safe way to repair racking. That just isn’t true.

We have long believed that SEMA safety conferences are extremely important to the world of warehouse safety. The build up to a SEMA safety conference, the events of a SEMA safety conference, and what follows after a SEMA safety conference can lead to big changes to warehouse and racking safety.

In a technical bulletin released in October 2014, one month before that year’s SEMA safety conference, SEMA made this statement about repairing damaged uprights by straightening them:

“With regards to any repair methods that claim there is no need to offload pallets in order to carry out the repair, SEMA’s opinion is that this is a high risk procedure and advises that such claims run counter to HSG 76 recommendations.”

The statement is as logical as it is unambiguous: racking cannot be repaired by straightening. Moreover, any repair method which is performed without the racking being offloaded contradicts HSG 76 (Warehousing and Storage: A Guide to Health and Safety). In this authoritative guide from HSE, the advice is crystal clear:

“Where damage is identified that affects the safety of the racking system, the racking should be offloaded and controls introduced to prevent it being used until remedial work has been carried out.”

Why do SEMA and HSE advise against repairing damaged uprights by straightening them?

Straightening damaged uprights is very dangerous for two reasons.

Firstly, carrying out any repair that affects a racking system without first offloading the racking massively increases the risk of a racking collapse. While offloading an entire racking system can take a lot of time, not offloading a racking system when it needs repairing can — and sometimes does — lead to workplace fatalities.

When racking is damaged to the extent that it is visibly bent and misshapen, it needs to be offloaded immediately. This is what HSE identify as a “red risk”. To leave the racking system loaded and to embark on repairs while knowing the system is damaged is a completely unnecessary gamble. If disaster were to happen, if someone were to die as a result of an employer not offloading a racking system which they knew full well was damaged, it would be entirely the employer’s fault. This is made clear with new CDM regulations’ definitions of client responsibility. From both a moral and a legal standpoint, trying to repair racking that has not been offloaded is just wrong.

Secondly, repairing an upright by using hydraulic equipment to straighten doesn’t work. No racking manufacturer claims that it would work and SEMA has outright stated that it doesn’t work.

Rather, SEMA argue that straightening damaged uprights makes them weaker. They argue that it leads to metal fatigue and they recommend the replacement (not the repair) of uprights that have been bent. When uprights are straightened, the original racking system has been modified and — in doing so — it voids the manufacturer’s warranty, the carrying capacity, and the safety guarantee.

Damaged uprights need to be replaced, not repaired. And, of course, for the damaged upright to be replaced, all stored items in the area of the damaged racking system need to be offloaded.

If SEMA and HSE’s safety advice is so clear, why is there still confusion?

Less than one year after SEMA categorically denounced straightening pallet racking uprights as “high risk”, ROS UK appeared in Warehouse News, claiming to have patented a specific kind of service: straightening pallet racking uprights.

In the article, it states that ROS UK can repair racking “without the need to unload a single pallet or product”.

So why is it that a business like ROS UK are able to offer this service when both HSE and SEMA agree that racking cannot be repaired until the system has been offloaded?

In part, the reason for this is HSE’s new CDM regulations. The 2007 regulations meant that the responsibility for the safety of a workplace, building site, or design project was shared by the “client” (the employer or contractor) and HSE itself. By contrast, the new CDM regulations (introduced in 2015) mean that the onus of responsibility is solely on the client.

In other words, HSE’s role is to advise the client on safety; it is the role of the client to ensure that safety is carried out. And so, if a client decides to hydraulically straighten their uprights in order to repair them, they are perfectly entitled to do so.

However, they do so entirely against both SEMA and HSE’s recommendations and, if tragedy happens and the racking collapses, they will have no-one to blame but themselves. HSE’s new CDM regulations mean that HSE are no longer at fault when clients go against their advice.

ERF Steps in with a New Storage Equipment Bulletin

In an attempt to make matters even clearer than they are already, ERF (the European Racking Federation, also known as FEM) released a storage equipment bulletin in March 2016. The bulletin contains this direct warning about straightening damaged uprights:

“This method of repair is not currently recommended by any racking manufacturers”

SEMA are a British member of the ERF and, as such, they are in agreement with them on many racking issues. The danger of straightening of uprights is yet another issue on which SEMA and ERF agree.

In short, SEMA, the ERF, and HSE do not recommend straightening damaged uprights. And neither do we.

Are your uprights in working condition? Contact us now for a rack safety inspection. As a SEMA approved racking inspector, we respect SEMA’s opinions on safety and always recommend that bent uprights are replaced, not repaired.

Storage Equipment Experts are proud to offer the best free warehouse racking inspection checklist in the UK… For free! Here’s how you can get your hands on one.

A free warehouse racking inspection checklist is a vital part of any warehouse. Whether you’re a warehouse owner, a warehouse manager, or the Person Responsible for Racking Safety (PRRS) in your company’s warehouse, a checklist is key to helping you to achieve optimum warehouse safety. We recognise how important a pallet racking inspection checklist is for anyone concerned with safety. That’s why we offer ours for free, and why we want to guide you through the process of claiming yours. But first…

What is a Warehouse Racking Inspection Checklist?

A pallet racking inspection checklist template is a document, usually printed or in a PDF format, which allows you to keep track of what parts of a racking system have been inspected. It’s designed for the regular internal, staff-performed racking inspections which HSE recommends. These inspections should be carried out alongside the annual, third-party racking inspections they recommend from a racking inspection expert, such as a SEMA approved racking inspector, for complete warehouse safety.

It’s a simple enough idea, but simple ideas can go a long way — especially when it comes to safety. Despite their simplicity, however, some warehouse racking inspection checklists are better than others.

What Makes a Good Pallet Racking Inspection Checklist?

A good pallet racking inspection checklist is a PDF document, organised into easy-to-understand columns with accurate terminology indicating which parts of your racking system should be inspected in a specific order. PDFs are the best to use because they are self-contained, secure files that are easy to compress.

Finally, the checklist should have been created by a racking inspection expert, preferably a SEMA approved racking inspector, and it should be designed to be useful for anyone — rack safety experts or otherwise.

What Makes Our Pallet Racking Inspection Checklist the Template for How All The Others Should Look?

Our template follows all of the above criteria to the letter. What’s more, we’ve even designed a supplementary infographic to go with the PDF document. The infographic explains what each piece of terminology listed on the warehouse racking inspection checklist is, where you can find it, what it looks like, and what it does (or should be) doing if your racking is working properly. So, now you know cialis 24 hr why ours is the best, here’s how you can claim it…

Claiming Your Free Pallet Racking Inspection Checklist PDF Document

1. Go to our pallet racking inspection checklists page.
2. Fill out the form on the right-hand side of the page

3. Receive an email from Storage Equipment Experts with your free pallet racking inspection checklist; it will be sent in a PDF format

4. Use your warehouse racking inspection checklist regularly and make your warehouse a zero-accident workplace!

And that’s all there is to it — apart from two extremely important details.

1. We Strongly Recommend Racking Inspection Training for Internal Racking Inspections

Internal racking inspections should not be carried out by just anyone. Person Responsible for Racking Safety in your business should be a capable person who understands the responsibility of their role.

As such, they should have racking inspection training from a racking inspection expert in order for them to use the warehouse racking inspection checklist properly.

We do not recommend that an untrained person uses a racking inspection checklist to perform an internal racking inspection. Even with our supplementary material, they wouldn’t have the training to know exactly what they were looking for. Pallet racking inspection training is vital for any staff member who intends on performing an internal pallet racking inspection.

And so, by far the best way of ensuring that your internal racking inspections are carried out as a safely as possible is by giving all of your staff racking inspection training from a SEMA approved racking inspector.

Free warehouse racking inspection checklist, we at Storage Equipment Experts also offer the best racking inspection training in the UK.

2. Warehouses Need Annual Racking Inspections from a Racking Inspection Expert, Too

In order to follow HSE’s advice, your warehouse will also need a pallet rack safety inspection from a racking inspection expert “at least once a year”. HSE labels SEMA approved racking inspectors as racking inspection “experts”. It’s also important to remember that HSE recommends these expert racking inspections “at least once a year”. You can never be too safe and so, if you are in any doubt whatsoever about the state of your racking, Storage Equipment Experts are only a phone-call away. We offer racking inspections by a SEMA approved racking inspector to businesses anywhere in the UK.

Be on the safe side! Download our warehouse racking inspection checklist, make sure your staff receive a racking inspection training course from a SEMA approved racking inspector so they can use it, and be sure your business also receives a visit from a SEMA approved racking inspector at least once a year.

Our resident racking inspection expert has passed two different SEMA courses, but do you need a SEMA course yourself? And if so, which one?

SEMA, the British Storage Equipment Manufacturers Association, offer a wide variety of courses from their base in West Bromwich. Taking a SEMA course in the UK can have a wide variety of benefits, but which one is right for you?

All of that depends on what you want from a SEMA course. Are you looking to gain a better understanding of warehouse safety for the sake of your business? Or are you looking to become a SEMA approved racking inspector? Your answers to these questions will give you an idea of which SEMA course, or SEMA courses, will help you in your career.

Internal Racking Inspections? You Need Racking Inspection Training from a SEMA Approved Inspector!

HSE recommends that all warehouses in the UK carry out internal racking inspections on a regular basis. In other words, HSE is looking for everybody working in a British warehouse to have a basic level of rack safety knowledge. To achieve this, look no further than our very own racking inspection training course. These courses, run by a SEMA approved racking inspector, will give your employees the rack safety awareness and racking inspection knowledge to make them real assets to your company.

Work with Cantilever Racking Systems? There are a Couple of Options Available…

Both the SEMA cantilever rack safety awareness course and our own SEMA approved rack inspector run racking inspection training course offer insight and awareness into how warehouse owners and warehouse employees should safely work with cantilever racking. The SEMA cantilever rack safety awareness course can be challenging. However, at Storage Equipment Experts, our resident racking inspection expert has passed both the SEMA inspection course (giving him a SEMA approved inspector qualification) and the SEMA cantilever rack safety awareness course. As a result, he’s the perfect person to educate your staff on cantilever racking systems.

Do You Have What it Takes to Become a SEMA Approved Racking Inspector?

A SEMA approved racking inspector (SARI) is someone who has passed SEMA’s SARI course in order to receive a SEMA approved inspector qualification. This SEMA inspection course is specifically designed for the kind of person who believes that they have the intelligence, patience, and attention to detail to become a SEMA approved racking inspector.

SARIs are a vital part of warehouse safety in the UK. The average week for a SARI often consists of travelling from business to business in order to make sure they have SEMA approved rack inspector run racking inspection training course.

Choosing the Right SEMA Course is a Matter of Good Economics

Whatever SEMA course you choose to take, make sure it’s for the right reasons. The dreaded “buyer’s remorse” refers to more than just home-purchasing. It refers to any large purchase, and a SEMA course is certainly that. After all, you’re not just paying with money; you’re paying with time, too, and this opportunity cost is something that you should factor into your decision.

There are many ways to avoid buyer’s remorse, but by far the best is to go for the best option. So for a truly great safety training course, run by a SEMA approved racking inspector, look no further than Storage Equipment Experts. There are many, many reasons why our racking inspection training course is the best in the UK, so what are you waiting for?

When we say the best, we mean the best. Contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a racking safety training course from a SEMA approved inspector.