KENNEDY WIRE ROPE & SLING

If your employees use fall protection, you’re no doubt aware of how important this equipment is to their safety. Any work done significantly above ground creates fall potential, and requires the use of some sort of fall protection.

While you may have issued fall protection procedures to your employees, have you implemented regular fall protection inspections? You might be surprised how many employees will not notice or will not report when their gear becomes worn. That’s why it’s important that you inspect that gear periodically.

A good way to manage fall protection inspections is to instruct employees to bring their fall protection gear to staff or safety meeting at least once a quarter. Remind all employees a few days in advance that the inspections are coming up so that everyone brings their gear.

When you inspect fall protection, look for items like worn or frayed synthetic slings. Also look for worn closures and metal d-rings. As you are inspecting items, be sure to point out any worn spots to the employee. The idea is to help them understand what they should be looking for, so that next time they will find the worn areas themselves.

To be prepared for these inspections, have some new synthetic slings and fall protection harnesses on hand so that you can replace any worn equipment on the spot. Do not allow employees to go back to work with worn equipment.

Over time, your employees will hopefully learn to spot wear on their harnesses and slings and turn these in for new gear before they become too much of a potential hazard. However, it’s important to continue quarterly inspections to ensure every piece of fall protection equipment is safe for the job. It only takes one bad piece of equipment to kill or badly injure an employee.