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HOW TO IDENTIFY THE BEST ICE CLEATS FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
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Every year from Halloween until well after the Groundhog appears, winter weather wreaks havoc on workplace safety. As snow and ice begins blanketing North America, slips and falls skyrocket, tormenting even the safest corporate cultures. Suddenly every step your employees take becomes a game of Russian roulette as they battle with the loss of friction underfoot. At an average cost of $42,000 per incident (according to the National Safety Council) it’s no surprise that safety departments take notice. The most common approach to preventing wintertime slips and falls on ice and snow is improving the traction underfoot by requiring ice cleats and other traction devices. Issuing these types of products can easily reduce your organizations slips and falls by 50-75% and more. If you’ve tried ice cleats in your organization you may already be aware of their benefit, or you may have tried them only to become frustrated by the lack of achieved success with the product you selected. While it is true that ice cleats can substantially reduce slips and falls, it’s also true that selecting the wrong product can do more harm than good. Providing the wrong type of ice cleats might introduce a tripping hazard, damage indoor walking surfaces or provide a false sense of security all while costing your company an additional amount above and beyond the cost of the accidents themselves. But worst of all, providing the wrong type of ice cleat may mostly serve to frustrate your employees making them less likely to be advocates for your program.
PROVIDING THE WRONG TYPE OF ICE CLEAT CAN: • Introduce a Tripping Hazard • Provide a False Sense of Security
• Damage Indoor Walking Surfaces • Frustrate Employees
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The first and most important thing to understand about ice cleats for the workplace, is that increasing traction is a supplemental goal. The primary goal is to ensure that your employees can walk, work and function as they normally would in the absence of a hazard. In other words, if you’ve increased their traction in ice and snow, yet hampered or impeded their ability to work in a normal fashion as a result you’ve merely traded one problem for another. It’s only when you’ve been able reduce their risk of slipping and falling while also allowing them to walk, work and function as normal that you’ve truly solved the problem. Think about any job function in your organization with employees that must traverse outdoor areas. Consider for a moment these workers going about their job in perfect weather conditions. As they move about from place to place there are no impediments to their abilities to work as normal. They are walking and working at a maximum level. Now consider these same workers in an ice and snow environment. Suddenly they must walk at a more measured pace paying close attention to each step. Even without an accident your employee’s ability to work at that same normal pace has been diminished. If and when an actual accident occurs their ability to work grinds to a complete stop. Now lets’ outfit those same workers with a winter traction device and see how they fare. With the confidence of an aggressive spike underfoot your employee can walk and work at a more normal pace on ice and snow. But what happens when they hit an area where the sun has melted the snow? Or they must suddenly walk indoors or drive a vehicle? Is the device that you issued too aggressive to wear
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in these conditions? If so, they will need to be removed causing your employee to stop and take this action. And of course once they emerge from the normal or clean condition they’ll need to put their device back on or they’ll find themselves right back to being exposed to the risk of slipping and falling. Even if we assume that we can count on the employee to safely remove and put on the device that you’ve issued, one thing that we can be sure of is that they are no longer operating at a normal pace. All this stopping and starting is slowing them down, interrupting their work and costing your organization time and money. And that’s if they’re actively using the item as was intended. If you work in a large organization with 1,000’s of employees it doesn’t take much to imagine that many (if not most) of the employees will lose their patience will all this excess work and stop wearing the device altogether. While ice cleats and other traction devices can help your organization immensely, it’s easy to see how companies can become frustrated, or abandon them all together.
SO HOW DO YOU DETERMINE THE BEST ICE CLEATS FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION? A Google search for “Industrial Ice Cleats” will reveal dozens of options in varying materials, colors, traction elements and overall design. While most of these devices will in fact increase traction to some degree, they can only truly help your organization if they are the right device for the right scenario; a device that not only increases traction, but allows your employees to operate as close to normal as possible. The real goal is to keep your employees safe while maintaining productivity. The key to issuing the right type of traction gear for your employees, is to start with what you already know and understand, their job task. Defining how each job interacts with winter conditions will help define the type of traction aid they require.
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Are they required to be outdoors in extremely messy conditions for all or most of their day? Or are they only outside for a small portion of the time? Or is it some combination in that they are required to move in and out all day long?
Once you understand their job as it relates to outdoor conditions you can begin to research traction aids with a better and more focused understanding of what you’re looking for. If you work for a small organization it will be relatively simple to think this through, but if you work for a company with 5,000 or 10,000 employees exposed to slips and falls, you’ll first need to break down your organization by job function or department. In the example below there are 7,150 employees that are at risk of slipping and falling in ice and snow and will require traction aids. After breaking the organization down into four Departments, we can then dissect each department based on the type of work that the employees do. Traction aids can then be selected and issued based on this breakdown. Example Chart: (Click Here To Download Blank Chart)
Employees Working Outside All Day or for Long Stretches
Employees with Minimal Outdoor Walking
Employees that Regularly Transition from Indoors to Out
Total Employees
Job Function / Department 1
250
500
500
1,250
Job Function / Department 2
100
250
500
850
Job Function / Department 3
400
75
1,000
1,475
Job Function / Department 4
750
825
2,000
3,575
Total Traction Aids:
1,500
1,650
4,000
7,150
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Once you’ve broken down your organization into job functions and departments and then categorized the work that the employees in those areas do, you can turn your attention back to the types of products that will be most appropriate for them.
HERE ARE SOME GENERAL GUIDELINES:
For employees that are forced to work outdoors all or most of the day despite the conditions, you’ll want to make sure that they have aggressive traction items that will secure firmly to their shoes. You want to know that these employees are getting maximum traction all day, and that there’s minimal risk of their device inadvertently falling off or shifting.
For employees that walk minimally outdoors you’ll want a device with a medium level of traction that can be put on and taken off easily. Quite often these types of “minimal use” devices are more economical.
For employees that must continually transition from outdoors to indoors or drive vehicles throughout the course of the day you’ll want a device that increases traction but is also safe to wear in normal conditions. There should be no need to waste time putting it on and taking it off throughout the day.
Using the provided chart and guidelines should help you get started with a more focused and purposeful traction program. With the proper type of traction gear issued, your employees will not only be safer, but they’ll walk and work at a pace that’s as close to normal as possible. Your organization will save time and money in both the reduction of slip and fall accidents as well as the ability to maintain a normal work rhythm.
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Winter Walking provides slip and fall awareness resources through our Safety Partner Program. When you work with Winter Walking, your slips and falls become our slips and falls and we won’t stop until they disappear. Don’t wait until winter to start preparing, learn how Winter Walking can start reducing your company’s slip and fall accidents today.
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