Industrial Floor Safety Best Practices

From spilled liq­uids and scat­tered objects to poor light­ing and uneven sur­faces, indus­tri­al floor­ing can be rid­dled with haz­ards. Pro­tect your assets and busi­ness by fol­low­ing the best floor safe­ty prac­tices out­lined in this article.

The Impor­tance of Keep­ing Indus­tri­al Floors Safe

Employ­ers and work­ers often focus on the dan­ger that chem­i­cals, machin­ery, and equip­ment may cause, but they tend to over­look the floor beneath them. How­ev­er, floor­ing plays a crit­i­cal role in cre­at­ing a safe work­ing environment.

First, dam­aged or worn-out floor­ing increas­es the risk of slips, trips, and falls. If employ­ees, cus­tomers, and vis­i­tors get injured, your facil­i­ty can lose thou­sands of dol­lars to pos­si­ble com­pen­sa­tion claims, law­suits, and a dam­aged rep­u­ta­tion. On top of that, reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies won’t like reports of acci­dents in your facil­i­ty caused by floor­ing haz­ards. Your facil­i­ty may have to under­go daunt­ing inspec­tions and face penal­ties for non-com­pli­ance with indus­tri­al floor­ing regulations.

Ensur­ing indus­tri­al floor­ing safe­ty is also crit­i­cal for pro­tect­ing your machin­ery. For exam­ple, vehi­cle tires can eas­i­ly get dam­aged after con­stant­ly dri­ving over bumpy or uneven floor­ing. As a result, the tires will need fre­quent replace­ment, increas­ing main­te­nance costs. If your facil­i­ty uses com­put­ers and oth­er equip­ment with elec­tri­cal com­po­nents, the wrong type of floor­ing can dam­age them because of destruc­tive elec­tro­sta­t­ic dis­charge (ESD).

So, no mat­ter how busy you are while tend­ing to your long list of respon­si­bil­i­ties as a facil­i­ty own­er or man­ag­er, you must not for­get to imple­ment safe­ty prac­tices for your indus­tri­al floors.

Com­mon Indus­tri­al Floor Hazards

It is easy to devel­op a sort of ​“blind­ness” to some com­mon floor haz­ards when work­ing in a facil­i­ty for eight or more hours five days a week. These seem­ing­ly minor haz­ards can go unno­ticed for months or even years. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these safe­ty risks in floor­ing are often what end up caus­ing work­place acci­dents and injuries. Hence, assess­ing and address­ing even a seem­ing­ly minor floor­ing issue is crit­i­cal to ensur­ing the safe­ty of peo­ple and vehicles.

Here are some com­mon indus­tri­al floor haz­ards to watch out for in your facility:

• Slip­pery Floors: Look out for water, grease, or spilled liq­uid on floors, as they make sur­faces slip­pery. Floors also tend to lose trac­tion when you apply wax, spill pow­ders (like flour and tal­cum), or too much of the wrong clean­ing prod­uct. Some­times, the floor­ing mate­r­i­al itself is slippery.

• Uneven Sur­faces: Bumps, holes, cracks, and imper­fec­tions can endan­ger peo­ple, espe­cial­ly in areas with high vehi­cle and foot traf­fic. If you have rugs and car­pets, they can also become a haz­ard if not secured.

• Poor Light­ing: Insuf­fi­cient light­ing, glare, and poor­ly dis­trib­uted bright­ness can make it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to see where and what they are walk­ing on. Poor light­ing increas­es the risk of acci­dents and injuries. Addi­tion­al­ly, it can strain a per­son­’s eyes.

• Lack of Sig­nage: Insuf­fi­cient floor safe­ty sig­nage can also endan­ger peo­ple in the facil­i­ty. Your employ­ees can unknow­ing­ly enter a poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous envi­ron­ment with­out sig­nage inform­ing them of the hazards.

Best Prac­tices for Floor­ing Safety

Reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies, such as the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA), offer guide­lines around floor safe­ty. Your facil­i­ty like­ly already has safe­ty plans aligned with these reg­u­la­tions, but there’s always room for improve­ment. Here are some of the best prac­tices you should con­sid­er imple­ment­ing to pro­tect your peo­ple and busi­ness from floor hazards:

Reg­u­lar Cleaning

Don’t skimp on floor main­te­nance. Set a reg­u­lar floor clean­ing sched­ule. It can be dai­ly or a few times a week, depend­ing on fac­tors like facil­i­ty size, traf­fic pat­terns, and peak hours. Still, occa­sion­al spills will hap­pen. In this case, you must clean up the mess imme­di­ate­ly to pre­vent acci­dents. While clean­ing, ensure that bar­ri­cades are placed in the work area to redi­rect pedestrians.

It’s also impor­tant to note that var­i­ous types of floors require dif­fer­ent clean­ing meth­ods and prod­ucts. Whether you have an in-house or out­sourced clean­ing team, it helps to have writ­ten floor-clean­ing pro­ce­dures that are updat­ed as need­ed (e.g., when using new clean­ing prod­ucts, when clean­ing new floor sur­faces, etc.).

Mark­ing Haz­ardous Areas

Floor mark­ings involve using col­ored sym­bols, shapes, and lines to con­vey crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion in the work­place. Floor mark­ings boost safe­ty in haz­ardous areas by inform­ing employ­ees of poten­tial risks. They also enable peo­ple to nav­i­gate areas swift­ly, improv­ing their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and effi­cien­cy. Oth­er areas of your facil­i­ty that will ben­e­fit from floor mark­ings include emer­gency exits, stor­age areas, path­ways, and aisles.

To ensure floor mark­ings will keep your peo­ple safe, clear­ly com­mu­ni­cate what they mean and why they are impor­tant to your employ­ees and oth­er stake­hold­ers. Ensure the mark­ings are always vis­i­ble and in good con­di­tion. Last­ly, stay informed of the floor mark­ing guide­lines released by OSHA and oth­er rel­e­vant organizations.

Prop­er Lighting

Your facil­i­ty’s light­ing should be suf­fi­cient for all occu­pants. This pre­vents peo­ple from mak­ing wrong judg­ments regard­ing an objec­t’s shape, posi­tion, or speed. How­ev­er, your light­ing should­n’t cause glare, as this can com­pro­mise safe­ty on the floor. Light­ing should give just the right amount of illu­mi­na­tion depend­ing on the type of activ­i­ty, types of sur­faces, and amount of space. 

It’s also crit­i­cal to posi­tion the light­ing fix­tures strate­gi­cal­ly. Light­ing should­n’t cre­ate shad­ows that can hide poten­tial slip and trip haz­ards, such as uneven sur­faces and wet floors. Con­sid­er installing reflec­tive guide tapes or lights to make floor haz­ards more vis­i­ble. Invest­ing in a bright ceil­ing is a good invest­ment, too.

Time­ly Repairs

Your facil­i­ty’s floor like­ly has to endure con­stant heavy traf­fic from employ­ees, vehi­cles, and equip­ment. No mat­ter how durable the floor­ing is, it will suf­fer from wear and tear over time. Cracks, pot­holes, and oth­er dam­age to the floor pose a sig­nif­i­cant risk of trips, slips, and falls. It’s crit­i­cal to iden­ti­fy and address them imme­di­ate­ly. Time­ly repairs and floor care and main­te­nance not only make the floor­ing safer but also extend its lifespan.

Installing Anti-Slip Coat­ings and Mats

Anti-slip coat­ings and mats increase floor trac­tion, min­i­miz­ing the risks of slip­ping and falling. The anti-slip coat­ing is applied direct­ly to a sur­face. It can be made from dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als, such as epoxy or polyurethane. Coat­ings are durable, can last many years, and are aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing. Con­sult with a trust­wor­thy con­trac­tor about the best anti-slip coat­ing that meets your facil­i­ty’s design and safe­ty requirements.

Anti-slip mats also pro­vide extra trac­tion under­foot, pre­vent­ing peo­ple from slip­ping eas­i­ly. But unlike anti-slip coat­ings, mats don’t require spe­cial tools to install. Instal­la­tion is straight­for­ward; you won’t even need pro­fes­sion­als to do it for you. How­ev­er, these mats aren’t as durable as coat­ings and may need fre­quent replace­ment. Nev­er­the­less, they can be a good addi­tion to your facil­i­ty’s entrance, high-traf­fic spaces, or high-risk areas.

Con­duct­ing Reg­u­lar Floor Safe­ty Training

Devel­op train­ing pro­grams cov­er­ing safe walk­ing tech­niques, poten­tial haz­ard iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, and the impor­tance of report­ing acci­dents. Con­duct these train­ings reg­u­lar­ly to ensure your staff is updat­ed with safe­ty pro­to­cols. Floor safe­ty train­ing is an essen­tial com­po­nent of main­tain­ing a safe work­ing envi­ron­ment. You empow­er employ­ees to con­tribute to a safer space by giv­ing them the nec­es­sary knowledge.

Ensur­ing Floor­ing Is Fit for Its Purpose

Com­plete floor replace­ment is unde­ni­ably cost­ly. Aside from the upfront instal­la­tion cost, your facil­i­ty might incur loss­es due to pos­si­ble down­time. How­ev­er, you can­not put a price on safe­ty. There­fore, don’t hes­i­tate to invest in new floor­ing if the exist­ing one does­n’t fit its intend­ed pur­pose (like tile floor­ing with grout in a health­care facil­i­ty). Replace­ment is also nec­es­sary when your floors are already beyond repair.

Con­sult with a pro­fes­sion­al about suit­able floor­ing for your facil­i­ty. For exam­ple, process­es using high-vis­cos­i­ty flu­ids will require floor­ing with sig­nif­i­cant grip. On the oth­er hand, facil­i­ties man­u­fac­tur­ing prod­ucts for human con­sump­tion will need hygien­ic and antimi­cro­bial flooring.

Main­tain a Safe and Com­pli­ant Facil­i­ty With Kaloutas’ Floor­ing Services

If your facil­i­ty is deal­ing with safe­ty chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with floor­ing, do not hes­i­tate to con­tact Kaloutas’ expert floor installers and main­te­nance experts. You can count on our team for indus­tri­al floor­ing instal­la­tion or repair. We install var­i­ous floor­ing sys­tems, includ­ing antimi­cro­bial, anti-sta­t­ic, and epoxy flooring.

Let’s improve floor­ing safe­ty with a solu­tion that match­es your facil­i­ty’s needs, com­pli­ance require­ments, and bud­get. Get in touch today or browse our gallery to learn more about what our floor­ing team can do for you.