Preventing Slips, Trips, and Falls

An employee watering plants leaves a hose sprawled across the greenhouse floor, another worker trips over a cart that wasn’t put away. Still another employee slips and falls in a pool of water that wasn’t marked off with “caution” signs or safety cones.

These are just three of the many ways slip, trip, and fall injuries commonly occur in greenhouses throughout the country. These injuries can result in high costs to greenhouse growers.

“With an employee injury of this nature, the cost to the greenhouse owner will vary. It could range from a percentage or two increase in your workers’ compensation premium rates to a 20% increase and possibly even more,” explains Jeff Graham of LaPorte & Associates, a Portland, OR-based insurance agency that insures growers nationwide.

Depending on your company’s loss record, one more serious incident could take you out of qualifying for standard rates and push you into your state’s risk pool,” he says. “When this happens, I have seen a company’s insurance rates increase by more than 50%.”

If someone were to have a slip and fall accident on a grower’s premises Graham continues, the insurance rates could certainly increase, but even more than that, competition for the policy could decrease, which means fewer insurance companies may be willing to provide the grower with insurance. When this happens, those companies that are willing to insure the risk are very likely to ask for higher premiums.

The potential costs to a greenhouse owner for serious slip, trip, and fall injuries go beyond increases in insurance rates. These include:

• Lengthy workers’ compensation claims (particularly for such injuries as back injuries, which often recur);
• The costs associated with recruiting, hiring, and training replacement workers;
• Decreased production while a new worker learns the job of the injured employee;
• Potential legal fees and/or Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) citations and fines; and
• Poor employee morale and the potential loss of good workers (especially if steps aren’t taken to prevent these injuries from recurring).

The Hazards

One of the best and easiest ways to determine potential slip, trip, and fall hazards in your greenhouse(s) and on your outdoor property is to take a “walk-through” yourself. Take a notebook with you and write down what you see. Among the many hazards you may find are:

• Evidence of “poor housekeeping”: carts, ladders, and other supplies not put back where they belong;
• Wet or otherwise slick (from algae, etc.) floors that weren’t immediately mopped up;
• Failure to use “Caution-Wet Floor” or similar signage and safety cones to mark off wet areas;
• Ladders that are not properly set up for workers to use;
• Tripping hazards in offices (desk drawers or cabinet doors left open, coffee spills that weren’t cleaned up, boxes left in aisles);
• Hoses that aren’t properly rolled up
• Inadequate lighting;
• Failure by employees to wear shoes or boots with non-slip soles; and
• Uneven carpeting, mats, or runners.

If you think of each slip, trip and fall hazard as the potential loss of a good employee, in addition to lengthy and costly insurance claims and/or OSHA penalties and legal fees, you will see the importance of taking steps to reduce the risk of these injuries.

What To Do

The Safety Department at Bachman’s in Minneapolis, MN, trains its greenhouse managers in how to prepare for potential customer and employee injuries that may result in liability. Preventing slip and fall injuries is a major part of the issues that are covered. Here is some helpful information from Bachman’s:

Prevention of slips and falls: The natural properties of any surface can substantially change when mud, snow, dirt, and water are tracked into the greenhouse. Water-absorbent mats, runners or rugs are designed to reduce such hazards. Floor maintenance requires special attention to eliminate the hazard of torn or curled up floor coverings. Floors and other walking surfaces should be kept non-slippery, clear, and in good repair.

Poor lighting can also cause falls. Light values at floor level should be uniform, with no glare or shadow. Also, there should be no sudden contrasts in light levels between floor areas, such as from bright sunlight outside the entrance to a dimly lit interior area.

What else can you do to reduce your risk of slip, trip, and fall injuries? Here are a few more suggestions:
• Conduct regular, brief safety training on slip, trip, and fall prevention with your employees;
• Prohibit running in the greenhouse and enforce “good housekeeping” rules — and set an example yourself. If your employees see your office in disarray, it is unlikely that they will take you very seriously;
• Keep the entrance to the greenhouse free of mud and debris (and free of snow and ice during the winter months); and
• Require the use of proper footwear – sturdy shoes or boots with non-slip soles that have good traction.