What to Include in Your Warehouse Safety Checklist

At any moment, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) can perform a safety inspection at your warehouse. There may not be advance notice or time to prepare—and failure to meet OSHA standards may result in hefty fines and penalties. 

More importantly, ensuring the safety of your warehouse employees is key to driving efficiency and maintaining a positive work environment. 2.7 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses occurred in 2020, and the fatal injury rate for the warehousing industry is higher than the national average for all industries.

Building a warehouse safety checklist can help you meet OSHA standards, ensure workplace safety, and even help decrease workers compensation premiums. In this guide, learn about OSHA safety audits, what to include in your warehouse safety checklist, and how Samsara Site Visibility can help you protect warehouse employees.

What happens in a warehouse safety inspection?

With OSHA overseeing approximately 7 million worksites, they prioritize their safety audits based on these considerations:

• Imminent danger situations: Inspections for hazards that may cause fatalities or serious physical harm.

• Severe injuries and illnesses: Inspections for reported work-related fatalities, hospitalizations, amputations, loss of an eye.

• Worker complaints: Inspections for allegations or hazards filed by an employee.

• Referrals: Inspections for hazards reported by other federal, state or local agencies, individuals, organizations, or the media.

• Regular inspections: Routine inspections based on claim history, injury or illness rates, and safety improvements. 

• Follow-up inspections: Return inspections for citations from previous audits.

There are three parts to a warehouse safety inspection: the opening conference, the walk-around inspection, and the closing conference.

1. Opening conference: The compliance officer explains the reason for the inspection. Employee representatives must be present during the opening conference and made available to surface resources such as injury logs and safety prevention programs. The opening conference is also the time to set expectations for the ensuing inspection, with a focus on confidentiality, representation, and participation. 

2. Walk-around inspection: During the inspection, the compliance officer will walk through the workplace, checking for safety hazards, injury and illness records, and potential violations. This is also an opportunity for employers to ask questions about how to correct cited violations.

3. Closing conference: After the inspection, the compliance officer will discuss identified hazards, possible solutions, and timelines. 

After the warehouse safety inspection, the employer will receive a Citation and Notice of Assessment that specifies hazards identified during the walk-around, fines involved, recommendations on how to fix issues, and deadlines.

What is a warehouse safety checklist?

To streamline warehouse safety inspections and protect your warehouse workers, you can create a warehouse safety checklist. 

A general warehouse safety checklist is a tool that can help you proactively evaluate the safety of your warehouse operations, so you can develop preventative measures to minimize potential hazards. This can help ensure that your safety standards are functional, compliant, and properly enforced. 

A warehouse safety inspection checklist should be comprehensive and easy to understand, covering common workplace hazards, safety compliance, and safe employee work practices.

What should you include in your warehouse safety checklist?

Your general warehouse safety checklist should enable warehouse managers to efficiently run through safety procedures for a variety of systems and protocols. Here are a few common safety hazards to include in your warehouse safety checklist. 

• Forklift safety: Unsafe forklift operation has led to more than 7,000 nonfatal injuries in the U.S., causing collisions, fall-overs, and struck-bys. Only warehouse employees that have received forklift safety training should operate a forklift. When operating a forklift, employees must always maintain visibility of obstructions, wear a seatbelt, and drive within the speed limit. 

• Warehouse racking and storage areas: Improperly installed pallet racking and excess storage can lead to falling objects and cause serious physical injury. To minimize potential hazards, large items should be stacked at easy-to-reach heights, with safe clearance in aisles for employees and forklifts to pass through. 

• Loading bay inspection:25% of warehouse injuries occur at loading docks, so it’s important to ensure safe loading and unloading operations. Injuries can be caused by forklifts, carbon monoxide exposure, and trailer creeps as trucks back out of loading docks. To minimize injury, dock plates should be secured and dock doors properly closed.

• Personal protective equipment (PPE): Warehouse employees must wear the appropriate PPE to meet the demands of their tasks. This may involve using specific equipment for hazardous materials handling, wearing hard hats at certain workstations, or wearing preventative masks for example. Make sure your checklist covers proper use of PPE.

• Fire safety and fire extinguishers: An estimated 1,450 fires occur in warehouses each year. To ensure fire safety, make sure fire extinguishers are in the correct positions, sprinklers, hoses, and fire alarms are in good condition, and emergency exits are free of obstructions. Make sure to clean up any waste that may cause fire or trip hazards.

• Hazard communication: Exposure to hazardous chemicals in the warehouse facility can cause serious injuries and even fatalities. Hazard communication requires you to provide information about the chemicals that employees will be handling. Information can include container labeling, data sheets, and safety training.

• Lockout/tagout: Physical injury such as amputation or electrocution can occur when heavy machinery isn’t properly shut down. Make sure to include a clear lockout/tagout (LOTO) process in your checklist to help minimize the potential hazard posed by unsafe or unauthorized operation of machines.

Improve workplace safety with Samsara Site Visibility

While a warehouse safety checklist will enable you to to run through potential hazards ahead of OSHA inspections, you’ll need a more proactive approach to warehouse safety to protect your employees. 

With Samsara Site Visibility, you can take your workplace safety to the next level. Site Visibility makes it possible to:

• Remotely view your entire operations from anywhere, on any device—so you can perform remote walkthroughs and check-ins to ensure onsite safety.

• Proactively identify and resolve safety hazards with AI-driven alerts and Intelligent Search tools, so you can prevent injuries before they happen.

• Retrieve and review footage in minutes and proactively coach employees with in-context video on the proper safety procedures.

If you already have cameras installed in your warehouses, Samsara can work with your existing infrastructure. Simply plug in our Site Gateway, a cloud Network Video Recorder (NVR), and seamlessly onboard existing cameras in minutes.