Prevent human errors causing injuries

Anyone in the industry will tell you that back pain in housekeeping represents the highest absenteeism rate in our field. Moreover, back pain is a long-term injury. Injuries due to mixing chemicals are also common. As an employer, we must take note and act. Prevent human errors that cause injuries through a simple principle: identify, correct, and control. Accident prevention is everyone's responsibility.

There are no right or wrong reasons for getting injured, but rather wrong ways to do it. First, let's look at some examples of why employees get injured:

To save time or money

• 

  The employee wants to save time by skipping steps. For example, when washing the floor, it is common to see employees

• Extend their arms and bodies to cover a larger area at once.
• To avoid having to climb down from his stepladder and have to climb back up (which is more tiring, especially if you have to do it several times), the employee contorts himself to wash further away, holding on with one hand.stoolWe chose not to take lifting equipment to save money.
• The detergent is not effective enough, so the employee decides to make his own chemical mixture.
• We use unsuitable lifting or hoisting equipment.
• Wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) is often seen as something unnecessary or even cumbersome.

Inattention

• After more than two hours of physical labor, the employee is tired and looking forward to his break. He hurries to mechanically finish the job.
• Or, employees no longer take the time to clear the floor area and an employee falls because of an electrical wire that he did not see.
• A busy worker doesn't stop or look from side to side at the end of a pedestrian crossing in a factory and a forklift comes barreling towards him.

Emotion

• The employee had a conflict with his/her spouse this morning. He/she is still shocked by the situation. The employee is making abrupt gestures.
• If the employee is experiencing a separation, harassment at work, or has a mental health problem, this must be addressed because their mental state could affect their way of working and even cause irreparable damage to their health or that of others.
• Being just hours away from the weekend, the atmosphere is festive. The cleaning supplies are being packed into trucks without securing the equipment.
• The employee has been doing this type of work for so many years that he is no longer afraid of the dangers of the basket falling and climbing onto the rungs of the lifting platform.

Is it possible to prevent human errors?

In the examples above, you can imagine the accidents that could occur with more or less negative consequences. There is no positive aspect to a workplace accident, except perhaps to become aware of it so that you can act better next time. There must be awareness and a willingness to act from the company's management. Have you considered how much an injury or workplace accident could cost your company?

• A customer is unhappy about losing the employee who knows his factory so well.
• Recruiting a new employee
• Cost of training the new employee
• Cost of CNESST
• Not to mention that it could take a long time for the employee to recover.

So, after you've taken all this into account, you could set up a small accident prevention team. I found an excellent guide on the website of the CNESST which speaks of this kind of action. I will not add to this document which I find well developed. Here is the document that you can download in PDF:

Identify, correct, control

To illustrate this point, this image speaks to me a lot. We have identified the danger, We have corrected the stairs so that she would be careful and we put a poster to warn hikers from danger. We have checked by assessing whether our measure is sufficientLet's say we could have put it in French too, but that's another story.

Identify, correct, control

Prevent accidents:

Implement an accident prevention training program. Make it known effectively by organizing a public announcement to your employees. The members of your accident prevention team should be known to everyone who works in your plant. For your information, we have a comprehensive training on health and safety in housekeeping that we have developed for the teams.

Involve all employees by making them understand that safety is everyone's business. A work team is a group of people who can prevent accidents for their coworkers. So, each member is on the lookout and ensures that everyone is working safely. Create a positive atmosphere. The idea isn't to punish poor posture or decisions, but to find positive solutions.

Conduct training activities on the theme of identifying, correcting, and controlling. These should at least include information on how to prevent common accidents in your company and in our industry.

There training WHMIS 2015 is also an excellent training to raise employee awareness.

To keep staff alert, they need to be stimulated and kept alert. For example, those working in articulated boom lifts are no longer aware of the dangers, feeling safe. What's better than a refresher training or even, a 15-minute preventive meeting before starting the workday. I had implemented this measure in my previous company. It was very effective, especially in the large-scale special maintenance team. Each day, the team leader spoke about a specific topic and reviewed important safety points collaboratively with the employees. For this purpose, you will find in our store, a working document that will inspire your team leaders and supervisors for these preventive meetings.

If you have other ideas that have worked, please share them with us; accident prevention is everyone's business. We will add your ideas for improving our cleaning industry to this article.

 

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