In a warehouse setting there are many fall hazards and risk areas that workers and safety managers need to navigate. But trying to work around complying with the OSHA fall protection regulations or OSHA dock safety requirements can result in serious injuries and hefty fines. Unfortunately, this worrying trend happens more often than it should in warehouses today, and the people responsible don’t seem to foresee the danger that it poses. Read on to learn how and why some business owners try to create regulation workarounds, and what you can do instead to ensure maximum safety and compliance in your facility.
OSHA Requirements for Fall Protection in Warehouses
OSHA requires employers to put in place safeguards to keep workers from falling off elevated workstations, overhead platforms, or from ladders and stairways that are four feet or higher in general industry workplaces. If your employees typically work over hazardous machinery and equipment, OSHA mandates that you provide fall protection equipment – regardless of the fall distance.
Specifically, OSHA states the following regarding fall protection and recommended fall protection solutions:
“The employer must ensure that each employee on a walking-working surface with an unprotected side or edge that is 4 feet (1.2 m) or more above a lower level is protected from falling by one or more of the following: Guardrail systems; Safety net systems; or Personal fall protection systems, such as personal fall arrest, travel restraint, or positioning systems” – 1910.28(b)(1)(i)
Also: “Each employee is protected from falling into a ladderway floor hole or ladderway platform hole by a guardrail system and toe boards erected on all exposed sides, except at the entrance to the hole, where a self-closing gate or an offset must be used.” – 1910.28(b)(3)(iv)
Ultimately, OSHA compliant fall protection is all about ensuring your employees are safe from falling risks and mishaps that can occur around the warehouse. The most common way to ensure employee safety is to install OSHA-compliant guardrails and safety gates around high risk areas. Warehouse safety gates are essential to making sure your workers stay safe at higher elevations and stairway/ladderway openings.
How and Why Some Warehouse Owners Choose to Work Around OSHA Regulations
With OSHA compliant fall protection being such a hot topic today, it’s hard to imagine that any warehouse owner would be unfamiliar with it. So, if ignorance isn’t the main issue, then that means safety violations usually happen because the people in charge blatantly choose to ignore the laid-down safety standards. Inevitably, employees end up getting hurt. For the business itself, the damage both on reputation and on production is often profound and irreversible.
Here are reasons some warehouse owners typically give for cutting corners with OSHA stipulations:
“Building My Own Safety Gates Is a Much Cheaper Alternative”
It’s human nature to want to save money at every opportunity. As such, you might be tempted to build your own warehouse safety gates that might ultimately cost less compared to OSHA compliant ones.
It’s an enticing prospect, no doubt, but such a workaround could end up costing your business hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, lawsuits, and more. Not to mention the amount of business you’re likely to lose once clients learn about your blatant disregard of the law and workers’ safety. Put together, these costs far outweigh the price of an OSHA compliant metal swing gate or two, for example.
“Installing Safety Equipment Takes Time”
Though it may take time out of your workers schedule to have safety equipment installed, in the long run it will save a company much more than just time. When working on a deadline, it is understandable to think of it as an unnecessary inconvenience, but being proactive will save time, money, and headache for your facility.
Most warehouse owners envision installation of warehouse safety equipment as a time-consuming process that probably spans a couple of days. When in reality guard rails and warehouse safety gate installations take hardly any time at all. All you need to do is to bolt the equipment to any existing floor or concrete in the area where you’ll be using it. And if a fall were to occur without a fall protection device in place, the amount of time lost due to work slow done, loss of an experienced employee due to injury, and the time sink of training a new employee is far greater than the time it takes to properly install a guardrail or safety gate.
“Safety Equipment Gets in the Way of Workflow”
It may be believed that having a guardrail or safety gate installed in a busy warehouse at pivotal work areas could slow down workflow- such as loading docks, mezzanines and elevated work platforms. But when it comes to OSHA dock safety and overall warehouse fall protection, choosing a fall protection system that is easy to operate, and in some cases self-closing, will aid with workflow efficiency and keep your employees safe in a quick paced environment. And again, the alternative of a fall and injury is a far greater interruption to workflow than is the process of navigating a guardrail barrier or safety gate.
A Reliable, Professional Fall Protection Solution Company Can Solve Your Woes Once and For All
If holding yourself and your warehouse to the highest possible standards of OSHA is proving to be a challenge, why not let someone else handle the planning, product selection, and installation for you? Professional fall protection companies exist for this very purpose, allowing you to stay abreast of OSHA’s regulations and solutions through:
- Top-of-the-line equipment: Forget about substandard warehouse safety gates and second-guessing your knowledge of OSHA mezzanine and OSHA dock safety tools. A company worth its salt will offer a wide range of cutting-edge OSHA compliant fall protection equipment, all meticulously manufactured and tastefully finished.
- Custom offerings: Have an idea about a custom metal swing gate but don’t know how to bring it to reality? There are companies that specialize in custom solutions for your company’s problem to fit any size, shape, or business brand aesthetic.
- Ease of installation and use: Even better, you’ll get safety equipment that has been specifically designed to install in a quick and easy manner with the standard tools you already have around your facilities; or can handle the entire installation process for you.
Simply put, seeking professional assistance is a sure-fire way to avoid devastating accidents and losses while creating leverage to do what you do best: move goods and make money.
Fabenco Is Your One-Stop-Shop for Top-Notch Warehouse Safety Gates
At Fabenco, our American-made warehouse safety gates and other fall protection solutions are not only manufactured to meet the strictest OSHA standards but are also designed to be versatile, long-lasting, and affordable. And on request, we can also develop a custom metal swing gate designed to meet your unique needs and specifications. Talk to our specialists today to begin your journey towards keeping your employees safe and your warehouse OSHA-compliant.
