Best practice: How safe is your warehouse?

Having visited over 300 warehouses during my time at PageGroup, I’ve had the opportunity to witness best practice at the ground level.

Besides the legal implications of not having a robust (and enforced) health and safety policy in place, prioritising work health and safety will increase productivity, lower LTI (lost time injury) while promoting your organisation’s stance on safety to suppliers, customer and other local stakeholders. 

While pay/benefits and job security remain top of the charts for employee motivation we have found our candidates are becoming more and more safety conscious.

RELATED: The growing focus on safety in the workplace

We also know companies fail to comply with warehouse safety due to several reasons including: perceived cost of implementation, time restraints, lack of safety knowledge and the common, “We’ve always done it this way and nothing bad has happened.”

But no company is immune from the worst-case scenario so consider the checklist below when putting together or revisiting your warehouse safety policies and procedures.

Warehouse checklist

Does your organisation have:

• Formal safety policies or safety management plan/manual
• Site specific induction
• Task specific SOP/JSA/SWMS
• Lack out /tag out procedures for all electrical and mechanical equipment
• Professionally-installed racking systems
• Electrical test and tag program

Most common safety issues noted

• No available hard copy of Standard Operating Procedures 
• No or minimal safety information and/or signage
• Out of date tag and tested equipment (especially Industrial fans, radios, computers)
• Lack of first aid certified personnel on site
• Inadequately stocked first aid kits (check your eyewash expiry date)
• Dangerous goods stored in open cabinets or inappropriate locations
• Unsafe or inadequate loading dock controls (lack of chains, bollards, line marking, physical barriers between forklifts and pedestrians)
• No or ignored forklift prestart checklists
• Enforced traffic control and Traffic Management Plans

I would love to hear your thoughts on OH&S and any stories that have positively or negatively impacted your organisation.

For more information or to arrange a free site assessment in Brisbane or Gold Coast, message or contact Fergus Cox, Logistics & Operations Manager, on 0431981339.

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.

RELATED: The value of safety and the impact of short-term hiring