Slips, trips, and falls

Preventing slips, trips, and falls in your workplace

Slips, trips, and falls are common workplace occurrences that can result in serious injuries and disabilities. They are a significant hazard facing employers and their workers and are a priority health and safety issue in Ontario. Slips, trips, and falls in the workplace are preventable, and employers have an essential role to play in mitigating risk and creating safe environments for their workers.

Compliance requirements

Everyone has a role to play in preventing slips, trips, and falls in the workplace. Ontario businesses must meet regulatory requirements set under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), which can vary widely by industry and sector. Workers have responsibilities, too.

Employers must:

• take every reasonable precaution in the circumstances for the protection of workers
• provide information, instruction, and supervision to workers to protect the health and safety of workers
• acquaint workers and supervisors with any slip, trip, or fall hazard in the work and in the handling, storage, and use of any article, device, or equipment

These duties could involve identifying the risk of job-specific hazards, establishing controls to eliminate or reduce workers’ exposure to hazards, or ensuring control measures in place are working.

Workers must:

• report known slip, trip, or fall hazards to the employer or supervisor
• use or wear equipment, protective devices, or clothing required by the employer
• report to the employer or supervisor the absence of or defect in any equipment or protective device of which they are aware, and which may endanger them or other workers

Prevention strategies

Slip, trip, and fall prevention strategies will be unique to each workplace. However, some considerations to increase the prevention of incidents in the workplace include:

• ensure there are clear policies and procedures in place and that employees are familiar with them
• ensure employees wear appropriate footwear and that there is a written footwear policy that is reviewed annually
• perform regular slip, trip, and fall prevention inspections using a checklist
• employees are clear on their responsibilities to wear protective equipment and report known hazards or any missing or defective equipment
• maintain a Joint Health and Safety Committee (JHSC)
• floor and surfaces are clear and free of slip, trip, and fall hazards, such as grease, fluids, clutter, paper, debris, etc.

There are many more prevention strategies to consider, and employers and employees will be best set up for success when their prevention plan includes strategies tailored to their own workplace and industry.