4 Top Warehouse Safety Tips for Business Owners

Warehouse Safety

Warehouse safety requires discipline, but it also requires knowledge.

If you own a warehouse, keeping it safe can be hard. After all, warehouses are big buildings, which means there will be a myriad of different things to consider when you’re performing a risk assessment. To help you along the way, here are four top warehouse safety tips.

Warehouse Safety Tip #1: Use a Floor Map

You are legally required to perform a risk assessment if your business has more than five employees. If it has less, it’s still recommended, but you don’t need to write anything down. As such, “perform a risk assessment” isn’t so much a warehouse safety tip as it is something which you are legally obliged to do.

Floor maps, though, are different. You are not legally required to use them, but they are a great way of helping you specifically with spotting the risks that exist as a result of your flooring. Warehouse floor space can be enormous, so identifying where potential hazards are can be hard if you do it as part of your general risk assessment. By doing your risk assessment for your floor separately through using a floor plan, you can be sure that you don’t miss anything.

Warehouse Safety Tip #2: Invest in Training

According to the CDM Regulations 2015, the people who work in your warehouse need to be “competent”. This notion of “competence” is intended to replace the countless card schemes which existed prior the CDM Regulations 2015, and it comes with a shift in responsibilities from HSE to the “client”. The “client” is the person who runs a construction project or — in the case of warehouses — the person who owns the warehouse.

In summary, the CDM regulations mean that it’s up to the warehouse owner to decide whether or not someone is competent enough to work in their warehouse. If an accident should happen as a result of incompetence, the warehouse owner may be legally responsible.

This change in the onus of responsibility means that safety training is more important than ever. HSE won’t be there to make sure that your staff are trained, but the law will catch up with you if an untrained member of staff makes a dangerous mistake which a competent member of staff wouldn’t have.

Warehouse Safety Tip #3: Record Near Misses

Near misses are not accidents. Yet, they need to be treated as such because the only difference between an injury, a fatality and a near miss is luck. Every business needs a bit of luck when it comes to sales or marketing, but it’s not something which should ever be relied upon when it comes to safety. In fact, as a general rule, you should never rely on luck in business. Just be happy when it happens.

By recording near misses, you get to learn from a mistake without having to suffer the consequences of a mistake. By not recording or not acting upon near misses, you are willfully putting your employees in danger, and they may well have cause to make a legal complaint.

Warehouse safety tip #4: Nominate a person responsible for racking safety (PRRS)

One the one hand, safety is everybody’s responsibility. On the other hand, nominating a person responsible for racking safety (PRRS) guarantees that at least one person will consider the rack safety in your warehouse. This delegation can be done across the board — a person responsible for floor safety, a person responsible for vehicle safety, a person responsible for warehouse security.

Doing so will ensure that at least one person is paying attention to every aspect of warehouse safety at any given time. When combined with proper safety training, it will mean that you know that each responsible person is also a competent person.

For warehouse safety tips and a warehouse safety training course from a SEMA approved racking inspector, contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a FREE quote.

Who is Responsible for Health and Safety in the Workplace

who is responsible for safety in the workplace

With so many other things to worry about when running a business, it can be hard to know who is responsible for health and safety in the workplace. However, the answer is simpler than you might think…

who is responsible for health and safety in the workplace? One the one hand, everyone is responsible for safety in the workplace. Employers, employees, clients, and even members of the public or visitors — every single person who steps into a workplace is responsible for their own safety and the safety of others.

It’s nothing less than common sense and common ethics. If we imagined that safety was somehow the job of someone else, the buck would forever be passed to someone else. By emphasising that there is no single person who is responsible for safety in the workplace, we can make sure that everyone takes responsibility. When that happens, accidents are much less likely.

As SEMA says in its video on load notices, “safety is everyone’s job.”

All that said, the legal question of who is responsible for safety in the workplace is a little less settled than the moral question. In other words, in the case of an injury in the workplace, it is not the case that everyone would be legally responsible for the injury.

So, Legally Speaking, Who is Responsible for Health and Safety in the Workplace?

Legally speaking, everyone is responsible for safety in the workplace — but not everyone is responsible for the same thing and not everyone has the same amount of responsibility. The bulk of the responsibility rests with the employer, but an employee, a visitor, or even a member of the public has some responsibilities as well. HSE lays out employer responsibilities on its website.

You couldn’t give all of the legal responsibility for safety to the employer, because that would mean that any accident in their workplace would be their fault. So, if an employee decided to purposely injure another colleague, the employer would be accountable. This is obviously absurd, and that’s why an employee needs some responsibility for safety as well.

Equally absurd would be if everyone was equally responsible for safety. If employees are ask to perform a task without the correct training or safety equipment, it is not their responsibility to know what safety equipment or safety training they should have had. If an injury were to occur in that instance, the employer would be legally responsible.

HSE lays out employee responsibilities (including agency worker and temporary worker responsibilities) on its website.

There are also other instances of responsibility. A member of the public who walks into a workplace uninvited and who winds up injured because they ignored safety regulation is responsible for their own safety. A contractor who created a fault while working on a piece of equipment might be held responsible if that equipment goes wrong.

You might also be an employee who is a safety representative elect by a union. HSE lays out safety representative responsibilities on in its website. The two most important pieces of legislation with regards to safety representatives are the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 and the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996.

Finally, there is “client” responsibility as defined in cases covered by the CDM Regulations 2015). The CDM Regulations outline responsibility for safety in construction or design projects. This includes building sites, but it also includes film sets, music sets, and television show sets. In cases like these, the employer is harder to define.

As such, the term ‘client’ refers to “any person for whom a project is carried out”. In projects covered by the CDM Regulations 2015, the client is responsible for many of the things for which an employer would ordinarily be responsible.

Figuring out Who is Responsible for Safety in the Workplace

In order to know who is responsible for health and safety in the workplace, the best thing to do is to research the relevant law to look at the relevant guidelines. For warehouse safety, the owner of the warehouse or the employer is responsible for most safety, but employees have responsibilities, too.

HSE also recommends one particular employee to be nominate as the PRRS (Person Responsible for Racking Safety). This employee will have more responsibilities than other employees, though this is not a legally binding matter. It’s something which HSE advises in HSG76, but HSG76 is a guide and not legislation.

The PRRS should perform regular rack safety inspections alongside expert inspections from a SEMA approved racking inspector once every 12 months. We also recommend that a PRRS is trained by a SEMA approved racking inspector in order to help them with their regular inspections.

As you can see by this point, knowing who is responsible for safety in the workplace entirely depends on the industry you’re in, the relevant legislation, and the relevant guidelines. However, as a shorthand, making sure that safety is everyone’s job will go a long way towards making your workplace safer.

If you’re looking for racking inspection training from a SEMA approved racking inspector for your PRRS or your annual inspection from a SEMA approved racking inspector, contact Storage Equipment Experts today for a FREE consultation.

Why the UK Needs SEMA Racking Safety?

SEMA racking

SEMA racking safety is the cornerstone of warehouse safety in the UK. Without SEMA’s input, our nation’s warehouses would be very dangerous places.

It’s easy to not appreciate how safe British workplaces are. Far too often, the words “health and safety” are synonymous with a nanny state. Stories about “health and safety gone mad” are by far the most popular representations of health and safety in the media, but they are by no means an accurate or fair picture.

The UK needs SEMA racking safety because it helps to reduce the number of people who die at work. Yes, extreme examples of overprotective business owners refusing to do tasks as basic as heating baby milk on the grounds of health and safety are annoying, but there are two things to know about these sorts of stories.

Firstly, the stories themselves are seldom ever the result of an actual health and safety law. 99% of the time, these events happen either because business owners misunderstood the law or because they wanted to be extra careful. However, the truth is that there is no law banning conkers from British playgrounds, selfie sticks from nightclubs, or pins from pin the tail on the donkey games. These are all examples of the all-too-common health and safety myth.

Instead, there are headmasters of schools and business owners who want to avoid risk. If that means upsetting people, at least they can always blame “health and safety” and avoid losing face.

SEMA Racking Safety Has Helped to Make British Workplaces Some of the Safest in the World

The second and most important thing which those sorts of stories miss is how much SEMA racking safety and other health and safety legislation has helped to make the UK a safer place. For the last year-long period that we have data (2016 to 2017), 137 people died at work in the UK. Each one of those deaths is a tragedy, but when you compare that figure to other countries and other periods in history, you begin to see how far the UK has come.

To begin with, 137 is 85% less than the nearly 700 people who died a year at work in the UK during the 1970s, in a period where nearly 6,000 people who died at work every year in the UK at the start of the 20th century. Though, it’s not just history which shows how invested the UK is in workplace safety. With a workplace fatality rate of 0.4 per 100,000 workers for 2016/2017 and of 0.5 over the last few years, the UK is the safest country in Europe in terms of the workplace fatality rate.

Beyond Europe, the UK has a much lower workplace fatality rate than other countries. The United States has a workplace fatality rate of 3.6, which makes the UK a 900% safer place to work.

What Does SEMA Racking Safety Have to do With Any of This?

SEMA racking safety one of the many things which help to keep British workplaces so safe. HSE can’t afford to maintain safety all by itself, especially not when its budget is continuing to be cut. As such, private organisations like SEMA are needed to make sure that safety inspectors are trained and that updates to guidelines for racking safety best practice are published.

HSE often defers to SEMA racking guidelines and SEMA racking services in its guide to warehouse safety. The reason for this isn’t just because SEMA is a trustworthy organisation which understands rack safety. It’s also because it’s cheaper for HSE to outsource this sort of work to an organisation like SEMA.

As such, SEMA racking safety is part of the success story of British workplace safety. Without SEMA rack guidelines, its services, or SEMA racking safety inspectors, the UK would not be able to maintain such high standards of workplace safety.

To make sure that your warehouse maintains the highest safety standards, contact us today for a SEMA racking safety inspection from a SEMA approved racking inspector.

What Are HSE Guidelines?

HSE guidelines

The term “HSE guidelines” is thrown around a lot. However, this is a problem, because the term is actually quite misleading.

HSE guidelines are leaflets and documents issued by the Health & Safety Executive which offer best practice guidance on a variety of public safety issues. These guidelines — much like HSE itself — are often misunderstood. Most of the time, this is through negative stories about “health and safety gone mad”. However, on occasion, HSE is misunderstood by people who respect HSE immensely.

Defining HSE Guidelines

By “HSE guidelines”, most people mean guides like INDG45 on the safe use of ladders and step ladders. This leaflet offers helpful and practical insight into how someone can manage ladders and step ladders in their workplace. The leaflets are a great example of best practice and you know that it’s advice you can trust, because it’s from the government.

However, these leaflets are not legally binding.

HSE Guidelines Are Not The Law

This might not seem correct, but it is. The idea that HSE’s guidelines are the law is a common overestimation made by people who respect HSE’s advice.

The confusion stems from the fact that HSE is the government organisation responsible for public health and safety. As such, it would make sense that its guidelines are the law. This logic is sound, but it’s not correct.

It can also be confusing because HSE does write laws. The decisions the organisation makes on public safety can affect some pieces of legislation and HSE can help to create other pieces of legislation from scratch. So, if this organisation has the power to make laws, why aren’t its guidelines the law?

HSE Offers Practical Advice And Legal Advice

At the start of many HSE guidelines, you’ll often see this 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.”

HSE guidelines aren’t the law itself because its guidelines are designed to be read by employees and employers with no legal expertise. Legal documents are often dense things written in legalese. Legislation is written this way so that it can’t be bent in some way to mean something else — as much as lawyers might try. The downside to this, though, is that this language can be hard to interpret. As such, HSE ‘translates’ this language into its guidelines.

A legal document is not designed to advise. It’s designed to outline bare minimum requirements. By contrast, HSE guidelines offer helpful advice which is designed to be read by employers in order for them to exercise best practice.

When HSE Offers Legal Advice, It’s Explicit

HSE guidelines aren’t the law, but they do sometimes refer to the law. When HSE guidelines do this, though, it is explicit. HSE’s INDG225 on slips, trips and falls makes clear reference to what three different laws say at the beginning guide. It unambiguously tells you what the law is and what the law says. However, the guideline is not the law itself. Rather, the actual legislation can be found here, here, and here.

When you to try to read the actual legislation, you quickly understand why INDG225 breaks down the relevant pieces of this legislation with regards to slips, trips and falls. To give just one example, Section 5 of The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 contains sage advice like this:

“Every employer shall make and give effect to such arrangements as are appropriate having regard to the nature of his activities and the size of his undertaking, for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures.”

If you fell asleep trying to read that sentence, take pity on the hard-working people at HSE who had to go through legislation like this in order to find the practical pieces of advice most relevant in certain situations. Distraction is the enemy of safety, and HSE knows that it’s easy to get distracted when reading pages of impenetrable legal jargon. It’s because of this reason that HSE guidelines exist.

In HSG76, one HSE guideline is that warehouses should be inspected by a SEMA approved racking inspector at least once every 12 months. This advice isn’t the law, but it is consistent with the law.

So, for racking inspections by SEMA Approved inspectors that consistent with HSE guidelines, contact Storage Equipment Experts today.