Falls are one of the leading causes of workplace injuries. Today we are going to take a look at fall awareness and the significance of Falls Awareness Week.
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We will let you know what Falls Awareness Week is and what we have learned from it to help reduce the number and severity of falls in the workplace. So let’s get started.
Learn more about Falls Awareness Week
Falls Awareness: Why It Is So Important
Falling at work either from a height or from slipping, tripping, and falling on the same level can cause serious injuries or in some cases even death. Injuries and deaths from falling are particularly prevalent in the construction sector. Falls in the workplace are the leading cause of workplace injuries and can cause your workers to miss time at work or even worse. For this reason, preventing or reducing the number of fall-related injuries or deaths on the job should be a priority in your workplace.
Falls Awareness Week
Each year the Government of Ontario, Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development designates a week as “Falls Awareness Week.” In 2020, that week was September 14-18. The goal of this week is to “bring awareness to workplace falls hazards through workplace discussion and participation.” By holding this week, the ministry hopes to promote open dialogue to shift your workplace culture relating to fall hazards to help prevent falls from happening.
Here are some helpful tips for preventing slips, trips, and falls in your workplace
How to Participate in Falls Awareness Week
There are many ways that you can participate in Falls Awareness Week both during and even after the event has taken place.
1. Hold a Safety Talk: Sometime during your workday, you can hold a safety talk about falls awareness. For this talk, you want to focus on a key workplace hazard like working at heights. Make sure that you create an environment where your workers feel free to openly communicate and voice their questions and concerns. To learn more about how to hold a successful safety talk, click here.
2. Download Your Free Fall Prevention Toolkit: This 38-page, downloadable fall prevention toolkit contains helpful resources including:
- A fall protection work plan
- Job safety analysis forms
- Fall-related safety talks
3. Participate in On-Demand Webinars: There are 5 short on-demand webinars developed by the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association (IHSA) that you can participate in. They cover key topics related to fall prevention including:
Participate in Falls Awareness Week to help prevent workplace falls
How to Host an Effective Safety Talk
In order to host an effective safety talk, you will need to do some preparation ahead of time. Here are the steps that you can take to ensure that your talk is a success.
Step 1: Designate a Coordinator. Ahead of time, you will want to designate an appropriate person to organize your safety talk.
Step 2: Invite Attendees. It is a good idea to invite a wide range of people associated with your project or workplace to participate in your talk. These could include owners, managers, supervisors, and subcontractors as well as your workers.
Step 3: Evaluate Your Current Fall Prevention Program. Take a good look at your current workplace situation and think about what needs to be improved as well as what type of training and equipment your workers currently have. Are there areas that need to be improved? These could be addressed in your safety talk.
Step 4: Plan Out Your Talk. Decide what information is going to be the most helpful for those participating in your talk. Topics could include:
- Your company’s safety policies
- Your safety goals and expectations
- Hazards
- Protective methods
You could also include a hands-on component such as a workplace walk-around or equipment check. Make it a positive experience and encourage workers to share their own experiences and make suggestions.
Step 5: Set a Time. Choose an appropriate date and time for your safety talk and make sure you stick to your time frame. If you say that it is going to last for 15 minutes, you need to honour that.
Step 6: Promote Your Talk. Let your workers know about it and try to make it as interesting and engaging as possible.
Step 7: Follow Through. If helpful suggestions came out of your safety talk, then follow through and try to incorporate those changes. Make sure your workers know that their suggestions were listened to and that they are the reason the improvements were made.
Your safety talk could include fall hazards in the workplace as outlined in this video
Falls Awareness – How ACUTE Can Help
ACUTE is here to help you with falls awareness. We can provide you with comprehensive health and safety training, on-site safety services and consulting services. Over the years we have trained more than 100,000 workers on workplace safety practices including falls awareness.
We offer CPO approved Working at Heights Training, Working at Heights Refresher training, Fall Protection, and more. We also now offer physically distanced learning at our world class workplace safety training facility.
For the Best Fall Protection Training, Trust ACUTE
You can trust ACUTE for the best fall protection training possible. ACUTE’s experienced team members have been serving safety professionals for over 20 years. You can trust ACUTE for hands-on, physically-distanced and practical safety training to keep your employees safe in the workplace. ACUTE is dedicated to workplace safety and understands the importance of course and training provider approval. Why get workplace safety training with ACUTE? Here are just some of the benefits of working with ACUTE.
- Open Door Instructor-Student Partnership – ACUTE’s training services emphasize client participation. Staff foster relationships with clients and serve as a touchstone for advice anytime moving forward.
- Serving Your Team and Industry – With a vast array of clients in manufacturing, construction, health, academic, and government sectors, ACUTE brings the best safety practices from across the spectrum to your workplace.
- 100 Years of Combined Experience – ACUTE provides comprehensive health and safety training, on-site safety services, and consulting services. With over 100 years of combined experience, our company staff offer more than theoretical or abstract ideas, ACUTE offers solutions.
- Track Record of Success – ACUTE is rated 4.9/5 stars on Google reviews, demonstrating a commitment to our clients, quality, and passion for training.
“Great experience! Training is well presented and engaging! Trainers are extremely well informed with lots of real life experience!”
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