Winter Safety Topics for Your Construction Site
In construction, your workplace is already filled with potential hazards. But add in snow and ice during the winter months and your company has a lot more safety precautions to consider to prevent workplace injuries and keep your workers safe.
From keeping your teams warm to weather hazards, here are three winter safety tips to ensure everyone stays safe.
1. Hold toolbox talks on winter safety topics
Proper safety training is a must for workplace safety, especially during winter. You have to make sure your employees not only understand dangerous weather conditions—but also what to do during them. Toolbox talk topics around added seasonal risk during winter can help you do just that.
Best Winter Construction Safety Topics
Here are some of the winter weather-related toolbox talks in Raken’s library:
- Cold Stress Toolbox Talk
- High Wind Dangers Toolbox Talk
- Shoveling Snow Toolbox Talk
- Slips, Trips, and Falls Toolbox Talk
- Wind Chill Index Toolbox Talk
- Winter Weather Toolbox Talk
- Winter Weather Driving Toolbox Talk
Holding toolbox talks will help your workers stay up to date on the latest winter safety protocols. It’ll also give them a chance to better understand what safety resources are available to them on the job. Avoid confusion—and hazardous situations—with better safety training and topics.
2. Prep your jobsite for winter weather conditions
When it comes to workplace safety, prepping every jobsite (especially with snow and ice) comes first. Slippery roads, strong winds, and fall hazards all increase risk for injuries at work. Cold stress—when the body gets too cold and can’t warm itself up—is another serious health hazard.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) offers a number of safety tips for winter. For example, if your workers can’t avoid working in the snow, make sure they use footwear with good traction and insulation. That way, they don’t slip on ice or get frostbite. The OSHA also recommends they should wear at least three layers of loose clothing to keep themselves warm. If workers are driving through snow (when conditions allow), they must be trained on proper car and vehicle maintenance.
Working in the cold is something all employers must take seriously. Make sure to keep an emergency kit onsite as well—so workers may use it to aid one another. Keep tabs on how every jobsite is maintaining their winter safety with custom digital construction checklists.
3. Improve documentation during the winter season
For your company, following safety tips is important—but so is documenting every step. Without solid documentation, it’s difficult to recall and prove the precautions your workers take to stay safe at work. That’s why it’s important to get an easy-to-use tool for faster, more accurate field data back to the office.
Raken’s daily reporting tool makes it easy to keep tabs on all your jobsites. First, workers document the day’s happenings, including resources used and safety protocols. They can upload any attachments (like photos or videos they take while working) for things they may encounter like ice, snow, or water concerns. Then, their dailies are sent back to the office instantly. What’s more—the Raken app automatically captures the day’s weather conditions, too. So you’ll know how to better prep your workplace if the weather conditions get too cold or unsafe.
Nobody wants to spend extra time and resources on documenting at the end of the day. In winter, people want to be warm at home with their families. Get a field-first app for your teams to use so they do their work more efficiently—and you can make better, safe decisions.
Give your teams the power to document winter safety measures
From proper training (like driving a vehicle in snow flurries) to daily winter safety protocols, reporting from the field should be easy. Get a construction safety app that gives you real-time data and more. So you can keep your teams safe this winter, and in the seasons to come.
Schedule a demo of Raken today—it even comes with a free trial.