A slip at work can look like nothing at the time. It can also put someone off the job for weeks, or turn into a claim later on. Blumers Personal Injury Lawyers acts for people who get hurt in falls at work, and we help employers who want to know what the law expects of them. Here is what that responsibility looks like in practice.
What the Law Expects
The law does not expect a perfect site where nothing ever goes wrong. It expects you to deal with the risks you know about, and to show what you were doing to keep people safe if something goes wrong anyway. Most of that happens in small, everyday ways. It comes down to whether someone is actually monitoring the places where a person might slip or trip.
Finding Hazards Before They Cause Harm
It helps to walk the site every so often and look at how each area really gets used. The usual culprits are wet floors, cords and boxes left across walkways, cracked tiles, poor lighting and steps or ramps that nothing marks out. Staff get used to these and step around them without thinking. A visitor or a new starter does not know they are there.
Example: think about a small step in the floor between two rooms. Staff who use it every day step over it without a second thought. A courier walking through for the first time, carrying a box they cannot see past, has no idea it is there until they are already going down.
Regular checks, and writing down what you find, will catch a lot of this early.
Fixing What You Find
Once you have found a hazard, it needs fixing. A cracked tile that gets reported three times and never repaired will still trip someone. When one comes up, it helps to work through it in order:
1. Log it, so there is a record of when it was raised.
2. Make the area safe straight away, even if that is just a temporary barrier or sign.
3. Book in the repair rather than leaving it to the next review.
4. Check the work was actually done, not just scheduled.
Other jobs are better handled on a routine than left until someone reports them. Dead bulbs should be swapped before an area goes dark. Floors need cleaning often enough that they do not stay wet or greasy. Outdoor paths want clearing after rain. Drains are worth a look too, since a blocked one often leaves water pooling where people walk. None of it is hard. The trick is keeping it up.
Staff & Signage
Your staff are usually the first to notice when something is off. They just need to know what to look for, and to feel they can say so. A short toolbox talk does more here than a thick manual. Run through the hazards common to your workplace, who to tell, what footwear makes sense and how to handle a small spill safely. Keep it simple and people will remember it.
Signs matter just as much. A sign has to go where the danger is, and people have to be able to read it. Put the wet floor sign out as soon as the mopping starts, not after someone slips. Where a risk never goes away, like a ramp or uneven ground, use a permanent sign. A faded sign, or one hidden behind a stack of boxes, may as well not be there.
Keeping Records That Hold Up
If someone does fall, your records can decide how the business comes out of it. They are what show whether reasonable care was taken. Hold on to your inspection notes and any repairs that came out of them. Do the same for cleaning and maintenance schedules, and for reports of incidents and near misses. Note who was trained and when. If a staff member raised a safety concern, keep a record of it and of what you did in response.
Records like these are not just for a claim. They also flag patterns. A hazard reported three times in six months tells you something a one-off does not. Often the warning is sitting in the paperwork long before anyone reacts to it. If you do end up bringing a claim to us, this history is one of the first things we ask to see.
What Is at Stake When Safety Slips
When safety slips, the injured person is rarely the only one affected. There is the legal side, including a possible claim for breach of duty. There is the cost, from compensation to higher insurance premiums and lost working time. Morale can take a hit while an investigation runs. Word gets around, too, if the incident makes the local paper or a bad review. So it is worth treating safety as part of the day job, not a task for later.
How We Can Help
If you have been hurt in a fall at work, or you run a business and want a clearer idea of where you stand, we are here to help. As experienced slip and fall lawyers in Canberra, get in touch with Blumers and we will talk it through with you.