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Learn about the basics of warehouse safety, OSHA warehousing standards, and tips to help ensure health and safety in warehouses.
Published 21 Nov 2022
Warehouse safety is a set of regulatory guidelines and industry best practices to help warehousing personnel ensure a safe work environment and reinforce safe behavior when working in warehouses. For sustainable warehouse operations, health and safety should be prioritized as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) revealed that the fatal injury rate for the warehousing industry is higher than the national average for all industries.
Warehouses can be dangerous places to work in. It is important to understand common warehouse dangers and hazards because they can cause injuries and in extreme cases death. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an average of 16 fatalities every year in the U.S. warehousing and storage sector and a reported injury and illness rate of 5 out of every 100 warehouse and storage workers.
While there are no explicit OSHA warehousing regulations, warehouse operations fall under the general industry requirements which include the following OSHA standards:
Here are 8 of the most common warehouse safety hazards and safety tips and resources to help you identify and control them:
Depending on the type of business, there are specific safety rules to be followed due to hazards that are also specific to the type of work people do. However, there are also warehouse safety rules that should be adhered to by workers in any warehouse. Below are a few general tips to follow to ensure warehouse safety, regardless of business or industry.
Setting and maintaining warehouse safety programs is an ongoing process of identifying barriers to safe work and removing them from the warehouse operations. Any warehouse safety program should be tailored to the current condition, needs, and culture of the warehousing workers, but it should at least contain:
Safety Observation Example in Warehouse | Preview Sample PDF
Create Your Own Warehouse Safety Checklist Eliminate manual tasks and streamline your operations.Get started for free
Eliminate manual tasks and streamline your operations.
Improving warehouse safety takes small but consistent actions done by everyone in every area of warehouse operations, not just by safety personnel. Apart from having the required certifications and appropriate training, facilitating regular warehouse safety meetings or toolbox talks can help engage with frontline workers better, foster collaboration, and build a safety culture from the ground up.
Listed below are relevant warehouse topics you can discuss with your team:
If safety procedures and workplace hazards are disregarded in warehouses to cut costs, it exposes workers to serious risks of accidents and injury. Providing workers training on hazard awareness, conducting safety inspections, and implementing warehouse safety measures can help maintain a safe, secure and healthy working environment.
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Regular warehouse inspections can help you be on top of hazards and risks present in warehousing and storage operations. A digital safety checklist can be a powerful tool to evaluate the overall safety of warehouses. Download these free warehouse safety checklists using SafetyCulture (formerly iAuditor) warehouse safety app.
Jona Tarlengco
Jona Tarlengco is a content writer and researcher for SafetyCulture since 2018. She usually writes about safety and quality topics, contributing to the creation of well-researched articles. Her 5-year experience in one of the world’s leading business news organisations helps enrich the quality of the information in her work.
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