In business, there are many contingencies and acceptable parameters you can put in place to better adapt to certain necessary outcomes. For example, if you’re constructing new business premises, you may budget the overall projected costs, and then keep a side budget you can touch in emergencies, if mistakes take place, or if the project timeline stretches on for longer than expected.

 

Yet in other areas of business life, contingencies and “acceptable outcomes” are, ironically, unacceptable. That’s because the cost may be too great, the reputational damage may be too punishing, or perhaps you as a business leader care too much about the correct outcome. For example, quality control should ensure all of your products never cause harm to your clients or customers, and if you do, your liability insurance should be so strong that you can cover all costs related to such an issue.

 

Another zone of business life this zero percentage rate should apply to is that of your accident and injury rate. You should always pursue the golden value of zero such incidents happening on your watch, from the start to the finish of your firm’s lifespan. That might sound too ambitious, but no other goal is worth pursuing. “Five acceptable injuries a year” is hardly something reasonable to budget for and plan around, and so we choose to chase the golden, and only standard.

 

Let’s consider what this might look like in a busy, sometimes hazard-filled environment that applies to many businesses regardless of their professional niche – warehouses, loading, and logistics. Without further ado, let’s consider how to achieve this goal:

 

Prioritize Comprehensive Employee Training

 

It’s important to be very careful about how you process your employee training. It must be regular, comprehensive, and cohesive. It must also be segmented so new staff aren’t inundated with a thousands courses only to forget most of the information once they’ve passed the modules.

 

For example, it may be that regular training on scissor lift operation will ensure that platforms are dealt with responsibly, especially when carrying freight. You can also promote internally from staff who started out at the bottom, perhaps paying to have their forklift training so they can move forward in your warehouse and can improve their skills and safety understanding over time.

 

Of course, training is not necessarily only about prevention, but also about recuperating lessons after difficulties have been found. For example, if you notice that your safety equipment hasn’t been maintained to the standard outlined in your policies, intense disciplinary action and retraining for all the staff this concerns about this essential procedure is absolutely necessary. It will help you avoid being complacent about issues, and it will also stamp out any and all doubt that could be present, doubt that solid training and an open-door policy can help reduce.

 

Implement Stringent Safety Protocols

 

Ultimately, your policies will be the baseline for how your staff operates and how your safety measures go from theory to practice. Policies should be detailed but also accessible, so that every single staff member can understand, remember and follow them.

 

For example, let’s discuss the warehouse loading policy. In your policies, you can delineate how loading staff should communicate with suppliers, vet the containers and components, remove from certain truck types using the correct equipment, report issues when to refuse delivery and escalate reports to the correct oversight department.

 

Protocols might also discuss your staff dress policy, from the kind of non-slip shoes that are most acceptable to the continual wear of high-visibility vests. You might also discuss the use of grip-sole gloves in the wintertime and how to report safety or equipment failures. This feeds back to your training, as it’s absolutely essential these policies are revised, understood, and updated where possible with new information.

 

These resources should be accessible through your cloud document platform and printed out to each staff member upon their joining your firm. Your administrative department should also review and update staff policies where and when appropriate, including considering how you investigate potential safety hazards.

 

Conduct Regular Safety Audits

 

Ultimately, you can’t know if your safety processes are working or not until they fail. After all, it could just be blind good luck that no injuries have occurred thus far. That’s why it’s so important to audit and test these systems in advance. 

 

In some cases, you can use third-party inspection firms to help you with this. For example, restaurants will often use third-party food hygiene and safety inspection services that come in and perform mock impromptu tests, keeping staff on their toes and rating facilities to a stricter standard than the actual health department would. This way, when the real test takes place, your company is more than prepared.

 

There are services that offer similar options for warehouse loading bays and logistical networks. They rate everything, from how well your freight is managed to the safety hazards noticed and reported. A full adult will give you a clear picture of what to look out for, and where the possible failings could be.

 

Investigate and Learn from Incidents

 

Unfortunately, it’s true to say that even the best possible approach in the best possible firm may not 100% guarantee zero incidents until the end of time. Your staff are wonderful, but they’re human, and humans make mistakes. It may be as simple as someone forgetting to put a wet floor sign out which caused a trip and fall, or perhaps a ladder hinge failed and caused a staff member to fall and injure their hip, despite the ladder seeming structurally sound when they used it.

 

Thankfully, these incidents can be learned from, which is the cold comfort of a silver lining. This way, you may learn to regularly inspect your ladders, to enhance accountability measures for cleaning staff who don’t put out the correct signage, and improve your closed circuit surveillance so your security staff can more easily highlight safety issues on their end. 

 

Investigations can prevent similar issues from happening again, which of course helps you take another look at our first recommendations – improving your training and updating your policies.

 

Invest in Adequate Lighting and Signage

 

So far we’ve discussed a great deal about the kind of systems you need in place if you’re to ensure safety policies are correctly followed, but the truth is that none of this works without a space conducive to safety.

 

To begin with, lighting and signage can help staff navigate the space and make out hazards in the best manner. Certain lights that show an active bay is being loaded or unloaded, using vehicles with bright flashing lights, and high visibility vests, and designing your lighting so each aisle of your storage space is correctly lit will be essential. Any light bulbs that break need to be replaced immediately. 

 

Signage will also be essential to reminding staff of careful procedures, be that as simple as learning the inventory process, making sure the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) is stored in the correct areas, and restricting access to the warehouse unless signed in and wearing PPE will be necessary.

 

Enforce Strict Equipment Maintenance

 

Sometimes, personal protective equipment can be replaced. For example, eye protection goggles may need a replacement strap, and that can help the item renew its purpose. In most cases, though, issues should involve a full and rapid replacement.

 

For example, if a pair of steel toe-capped boots are cracked, they should be replaced. If a loading trolley is broken, it must be replaced. Maintenance and inventorying your equipment can prevent you from brushing aside issues that could lead to enhanced risk for those who have to use them.

 

Reward and Recognize Safe Practices

 

It’s true that for the most part, not being injured at work is its own reward. That said, it can also be worthwhile to try and incentivize this. That’s not to say you should put a secret police system into place where staff report each other for every slight infraction. But it does mean that working together to identify safety issues should be rewarded, even if that means recognition at your yearly business award show for the department that managed to subvert a safety flaw or raise it to the appropriate department immediately upon noticing it.

 

When staff feel as though there’s real recognition for helping keep the workplace safe, they’re much less likely to feel indifferent even when the job feels a little long in the tooth on their end. The last thing you need is for complacent staff to allow this attitude to not only show up in their work, but in how they may, by implication, endanger their friends.

With this advice, you’re certain to reduce your warehouse incident to zero. With all the advice in this post, careful handling procedures, making certain your warehouse is designed with open and easily navigable space, and that basic safety features like fire safety and appropriate storage measures are following, you should be ever-closer to achieving that 0% injury rate going forward.