A Safe Work Area In The Warehouse
If you run a warehouse, then you need to make employee safety the most important consideration with regards to the way everything runs in the warehouse. A warehouse can be a very dangerous place for employees, but with proper training and procedures in place, you can significantly decrease the risk of danger that lurks in the warehouse. When you take steps to provide a safer place to work, you can decrease the chances of dealing with a claim against workers comp insurance in your organization. Here are some of the things that you will want to do in the warehouse in order to help prevent as many injuries and accidents as possible.
Properly train everyone
No matter what position an employee has, you are going to want to run them through safety training that covers things like how items should be stacked, procedures for dealing with spills properly, and anything else that can lead to any type of injuries. You should even consider giving new employees tests before allowing them on the floor to begin work. This way, you know that you have made sure they understand what was covered in their safety training and that they were paying attention.
Along with everyone being properly trained on helping to ensure an all-around safe work environment, you're also going to want to be sure everyone is fully trained for the specific jobs that they do. For example, you want to make sure the forklift drivers are trained for the model and style of forklifts that they will be driving. Should the forklifts be replaced with new models, the employees will need to be brought up to speed again for those models.
Decrease back injuries
You want to do all you can to decrease the odds of employees ending up with back injuries. Back injuries are quite common in the workplace because there are so many ways that back injuries can happen. They can happen when someone falls, when someone trips, and even when someone lifts something wrong. You want to be sure everyone understands proper body mechanics and keep the floor space free of all obstacles that a person may trip over.
Inspect the floor
You want there to be someone available at all times to walk the warehouse floor and look for anything that can be problematic. When employees are hard at work tending to their own job duties, it can be easy for them to miss things like a box hanging dangerously off the edge of a shelf where it can fall and hurt someone. Having someone on the floor whose only job is spotting and fixing problems can significantly decrease accidents.
Conclusion
Now that you know some things you can do to decrease injuries, then you can also decrease the chances of dealing with worker's compensation claims. It is important to try to go as long as possible without incidents.