Steady & Careful
Safe at Work
There are only two reasons to have a yard ramp: safety and efficiency. If you can’t have both, you shouldn’t own a yard ramp.
We firmly stand behind that. Safety and efficiency inform our sales and rental process with customers.
Without safety and efficiency, the chances for a dangerous work environment grow exponentially, and at great cost.
That first cost, most importantly, is human. Injury that we can recover from. Injury that we can’t recover from. Death. Impact of the loss on family and friends.
A second cost: workflow of the company. Much depends on the size of the business. With that employee out, you might need to train somebody for the position. Which might take time and delay your operations.
Another cost: financial. Training someone for a new position takes time, and time is money. The injured might have large medical bills not covered by insurance. There might be workmen’s comp claims. Employer’s insurance rates might rise. OSHA might levy fines as a result of the accident. From OSHA’s website:
“OSHA’s maximum penalties for serious and other-than-serious violations will increase from $14,502 per violation to $15,625 per violation. The maximum penalty for willful or repeated violations will increase from $145,027 per violation to $156,259 per violation.”
We can’t put a price tag on human life. And OSHA’s steep fines seem designed to encourage a proactive approach to accident prevention.
Conger’s summary of warehouse safety includes a listing of why some warehouses are less safe than others:
- Management or employees taking shortcuts to save time
- Reduced spending on warehouse safety training programs
- Providing improper, incorrect, or incomplete safety training
- Assigning fewer safety officers who can spearhead safety initiatives
- Poor housekeeping and lack of mandated safety equipment
- Talent and labor shortages can mean fewer experienced workers
The workplace can be, and is, dangerous. Heavy objects. Sharp objects. Heavy, sharp, and moving objects. Human beings. These are potentially potent combinations.
From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021 saw 2,607,900 nonfatal injuries and illnesses and 5,190 fatal work-related injuries.
Whether you’ve experienced a workplace accident or not, the numbers are a wake-up call. Safety and efficiency in the workplace are not just possible. They’re essential.
From The Ramp Rules Blog:
Speaking of safety, our man McCoy Fields maintains a whole category of insight under the “Cautionary Tales” umbrella.
Click HERE to safely visit McCoy’s take on human folly.
