Christmas is truly one of my favorite times of the year. I don’t just say that because I’m hopped up on egg nog.

I love the lights, the Christmas trees, giving gifts to people I love and who love me back, and I love having a white Christmas with snow on the ground.

[Image courtesy of Tracy Hunter from Flickr via a Creative Commons license]Snow and ice can be beautiful this time of year, but it also can be very dangerous around workplaces unless safety officers take reasonable steps to prevent slips, trips and falls which are common with snow and ice.

However, as a safety professional with a few years’ experience, I know that Christmas can also be one of the more dangerous times of year. And of course I am not just talking about those people who drink at the office party and decide to drive home. I’m also talking about more “minor” dangers like injuries from slips, trips and falls (STFs). After all, with a lot of snow and ice on the ground this time of year, the risk of higher STF rates does increase.

It is reported that in Canada one in six time-loss injuries approved by workers-compensation boards in the country stem from STF incidents, which translates to about 42,000 Canadians each year suffering injuries from a fall. And while many think that falls can be a regular occurrence from a higher surface to alower, the reality is that about two-thirds of falls occur on the same level.

And when you think further about the heavy presence of snow and ice and what happens when that snow and ice melts, the risk of a slip and/or fall go up more. With this in mind, let us re-visit some reminders about ways to prevent the STF incidents that can put your company at a productivity and profitability disadvantage as the New Year starts. Some of these steps are items that you or your management team can implement, and others are items which you could advise your workers to adopt into their work days as well as in their home lives – after all, STFs at home can affect the workplace just as much as an on-site incident.

An important thing to consider are the floors on icy and snowy days. As people come into your office setting from outdoors where there is snow and/or ice, the last thing you need is for those people to track footprints through your office – because in a matter of minutes, those footprints become slippery puddles of water. To help alleviate this, have a dry mop handy at or near every entrance to your office, or better yet have water-absorbent mats at your entrances and make sure that everyone wipes their feet completely on the mats before entering the office area.

And if you are in an office or retail environment where people often carry items from one part of the office to another, it would be important to make sure your floors are even, dry and don’t have trip-potential items like cords or hoses on the floors or have puddles of water or other fluids.  If you have irregularities in your floors, find some coverings to even the floor as people walk. Especially those carrying items in their arms, they often can’t see where they are walking, so smooth, dry and clean floors will make it less of a hazard for them to do their jobs.

Another point to consider is rush hour – as in, making people feel like they are in a rsh to get to work. Many injuries and accidents are preventable because the person who suffered probably believed he or she was in a rush to meet some deadline. If you mornally have a staff meeting first thing in the morning as people come to work, sometimes it’s OK to not be so punctual. Push the meeting back a few minutes to give workers time to get to the office, wipe their feet properly and be safe moving about the office. If workers need to move about the office in order to meet a deadline, maybe find ways to relax the strict deadlines when you can so people aren’t rushing around and accidentally tripping over an open desk drawer or slipping on that coffee spill in the break room.

Outside your building, whenever possible make sure you have your sidewalks and entryways shoveled free of snow or scraped free of ice before your workers arrive for their shifts.  This also falls under the “reasonable” effort mandated by law to prevent liability should an STF incident occur on your property.Getting rid of snow and ice on your sidewalks and even in parts of your parking lot (who would want to see a worker get to work only to slip on a patch of ice in the parking lot and not even be able to make the 20-foot walk to the front door?) will go a long way  toward providing a safe working environment for your workers, and would help you comply with workplace safety laws nand regulations should an incident occur.

Have yourselves a safe and very happy Christmas this week!