Construction Safety Tips to Ensure the Wellbeing of Your Workers
Construction sites are full of safety hazards and could easily bring harm to anyone or anything that is out of place. Those who work at these sites are exposed to a very high level of danger and even a slight mishap might bring about catastrophic consequences to everyone around them. This is why it is imperative that you take all the necessary steps to ensure the safety and wellbeing of your workers. We are here to provide you with a few tips on how you can accomplish this in an effective manner to keep your employees safe from all possible workplace dangers.
When Climbing Ladders And Stairs?
Those who regularly use ladders and stairs can seriously hurt themselves if they don’t practice the right safety precautions before using them. Instruct them to always check the structures before stepping on them and if any damaged or loose areas are there, avoid stepping on them. The climbing surfaces of the structures must be kept clean and uncluttered at all times to prevent slipping or toppling. And the ladders used to reach an elevated position must always be taller than the position that you want to reach (at least 3 or 4 feet taller), to prevent the possibility of falling by overreaching.
If aerial lifts or elevated platforms are available, it is always better to use these instead of stairs and ladders which are comparatively more difficult to climb.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
In addition to the communal first aid boxes and fire extinguishers which are to be used at emergency situations, the workers must be advised to always wear the protective gear that they have been given to prevent the possibility of injury while they are engaged in their jobs. Since different employees perform activities that are quite different from one another, the protective gear handed to them must be specific to the activity they perform. For instance, an individual working with rebar benders must be equipped with safety goggles to protect their eyes from flying particles, thick gloves to provide better grip for handling metal rods and bars and hard boots with better grip for operating the foot pedal with ease.
In addition to such activity-specific safety equipment, a back-brace muse is used when lifting heavy objects to prevent back injury and wear a breathing mask at all times because construction sites are swarming with hazardous air particles.
Crowded Areas
The large numbers of labourers, employees and even the bystanders of a construction site are attracted to the big machines that operate all throughout the day; this exposes all these parties to a high level of risk. Large machines such as fixed cranes can collapse when they go out of control and if such a thing is to happen, all those on the ground below must stay as farther away from the location as possible to minimize the damage as much as possible. The operator of such a machine will not be able to manage the crowd below; therefore, it is better to assign an individual or a group to establish a safety perimeter around such machines in the ground below.