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Ready to transform your storage areas into safer zones for your team?
Offices and cubicles seem harmless, right? After all, it’s not like you’re walking around on a construction site every day or toiling away in a factory warehouse with forklifts driving everywhere.
Wrong!
Office hazards are everywhere. Your storage closets, walkways, and even cubicle setups are major injury risks for your staff. In fact, thousands of workers find themselves in the hospital each year from completely preventable office injuries.
The best part? You can eliminate these storage area dangers using these tried and true solutions. It’s easier than you think.
Inside this article:
- Why Office Safety is Important
- Common Storage Area Risks
- Office Storage Safety Solutions That Work
- Safety Tips You Can Do Right Now
Why Office Safety is Important
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has established guidelines, rules, and regulations that office and cubicle environments must meet.
Some of these requirements relate to ergonomics and employee health concerns, like the need for adjustable chairs and proper desk height. Others focus on common safety risks that can cause injuries on the job.
Falls
Did you know that the National Safety Council estimates that employees are 2.5 times more likely to have a disabling fall in an office than anywhere else?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics also highlights that in 2022 there were over 450,000 work injuries from slips, trips, and falls in general. Many of these incidents occurred in normal office environments.
They didn’t expect them to happen because they were in an office.
The fact is that cluttered walkways, unorganized storage areas, and exposed furniture corners are dangerous to your employees. Installing safety accessories such as rubber corner guards on shelving units, desks, filing cabinets, and more can greatly reduce impact injuries.
Common Storage Area Risks
A couple things that most office managers and safety professionals don’t realize is that the most dangerous areas of your office are often your storage areas.
Overstuffed shelves, misaligned boxes, and wobbly filing cabinets play a big role in office accidents each year. Common risks include:
- Heavy items on high shelves that can easily fall and hurt someone
- Filing cabinets that tip over when multiple drawers are opened at the same time
- Boxes and materials blocking walkways and emergency exits
- Metal shelving with sharp edges that cause cuts and bruises
The Office of Compliance found that large stacks of materials and heavy equipment can lead to major injuries if they are knocked over. The best recommendation here is obvious. Store all heavy objects low to the ground and never exceed the weight limit of shelves or storage units.
The last thing you want is your heavy-duty filing cabinet tipping over because all the drawers are open and someone going to the hospital in an ambulance. No exaggeration, that happens more than you might think.
Office Storage Safety Solutions That Work
Alright, let’s take a look at the strategies that actually prevent injury and save lives. These are tried and true approaches backed by industry safety pros.
Reorganize Your Storage Layout
One of the first steps to better storage safety is to evaluate how things are currently stored. Design a logical layout so that heavy items stay low and high-traffic items are easy to access.
The layout should be structured so that employees don’t have to climb, stretch, or reach excessively to get what they need. Making this change alone can greatly reduce the incidence of falls and lifting injuries.
Invest in Proper Shelving Systems
You might think that cheap shelving is a good idea to save money. Wrong.
Cheap shelving costs you big time in the long run when it fails and causes someone to get hurt. Quality shelving units should be anchored to walls whenever possible and rated to hold the weight they will actually be asked to hold.
You can’t assume a shelf is going to hold more than the recommended load capacity.
Key features to look for include:
- Adjustable shelf heights for different item sizes
- Rounded or guarded edges to prevent cuts and bruises
- Stable bases that don’t tip under heavy loads
- Easy labeling system to identify items quickly
Create Clear Pathways
The fact is that clutter in walkways is one of the leading causes of office injury. We all know this and yet it’s amazing how quickly boxes and materials stack up in areas that are supposed to be clear.
Establish clear zones for storage and enforce them. Make sure every box, material, and tool has a home and that every employee knows exactly where it is.
Add Protective Equipment to Furniture
Have you ever thought about all those exposed furniture corners in your office and how many injuries they cause every year?
Thousands of employees in offices and cubicle environments are injured by desks, shelving units, and filing cabinets that have exposed, sharp edges. The solution is simple. Cover them with the proper protective guards.
Especially if the furniture is located in high traffic areas where people are rushing around and not paying attention to corners that shouldn’t be there.
Safety Tips You Can Do Right Now
The best part about all of the above solutions is that you don’t have to wait for a big office remodel to make them happen.
Here are some changes you can make today that will have a huge impact on the safety of your staff and visitors to your facility.
Conduct a walkthrough inspection. Grab a notepad and go through every part of your office. Look for tripping hazards, overloaded shelves, and unstable storage units and write them down.
Secure all filing cabinets. Check each cabinet and make sure they are weighted down or anchored correctly so they can’t tip over. Opt for filing cabinets that have built-in safety features preventing more than one drawer from being open at a time.
Clear those walkways. Move any boxes, cables, or equipment that doesn’t need to be in high-traffic areas. Immediately if they are blocking emergency exits.
Check your lighting. Poor lighting in storage areas is a big contributor to accidents as people can’t see hazards and obstacles clearly. Replace burned out bulbs and add more lighting in dark areas.
Train your team. Hold a meeting to ensure everyone knows proper lifting techniques and storage procedures. A quick training session can prevent injuries that end up sidelining workers for weeks at a time.
Wrapping Things Up
Office and storage safety don’t have to take a massive budget or months of planning to achieve. It just takes paying attention to details and being willing to make the right changes.
The solutions above are proven to reduce workplace injuries. They work because they target the real reasons why accidents happen, instead of just putting a Band-Aid on the problem.
Remember that every avoided injury is less pain and suffering for an employee. It’s also less lost work days and lower costs for your business. It’s a win on all fronts.
Do a safety audit this week and find the biggest risks in your office and storage areas. Tackle the solutions one by one until your storage spaces meet the safety standards that they should.
Your team deserves to work in an environment where they can focus on doing their jobs without constantly worrying about getting hurt. Help them by making it happen with these strategies today.
