Would safety professional really care much about visitors to a worksite?

After all, the safety officer has enough on his or her plate keeping the workers safe at all costs, so as to not only keep the workforce at work and productive but also to help the bottom line in preventing workman’s compensation claims and training new workrs which drive up expenses for a company.

Visitors are just visitors, right? They don’t post much threat!

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Osvaldo Gago via a Creative Commons license]

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Osvaldo Gago via a Creative Commons license]

Actually, there is a case study recently that demonstrates the value of a safety officer or a company in general putting safety first on the worksite over the workers, thus implementing safety protocols and a culture that keeps everyone safe on a site, no matter if it’s a salaried employee, a temp, a visitor, a vendor or any other person who sets foot on the property.

And no, this isn’t about the liability insurance that most companies have in place. This is about human life, that all lives on a worksite are worth protecting no matter if the company pays the persons or not.

The Case Study

Discussing the safety of visitors to your worksite cannot be made more clear than a recent Ontario case involving a self-storage company. The company had done some renovation on its site, which was a former NORA D missile defnense site, and the company converted neary 30 missile silos into storage units. In the process of the renovation, the company attempted to put so,e wood flooring down over the concrete foundations in the basement of these silos. One such silo, in particular, had a wide opening (about 39 square feet) leading down into a concrete hole about six feet deep. The hole was created to allow for a set of stairs to be installed in the future. A visitor to the storage company wanted to check out this particular storage unit, where a box truck was parked perilously close to the hole (which had no covering or guardrail). The visitor noted that the truck was back up to the edge of the hole, with the tail of the truck overhanging the hole. As the visitor moved in to get a closer look at the wheels and the hole, he fell in and dropped to his death.

In the ensuing legal matter, the self-storage company pleaded guilty to a violation of the OHS Act, which was a failure to protect a worksite by not having a guardrail or floor covering over a hole. The company not only was liable for the death, but it also had a fine of $100,000 imposed on it. Why, then the death was a visitor and not an employee? The court ruled that the relationship of the deceasd to the company was not relevant – the hole was a hazard for everyone who was there. The safety issues was the same had the person who died been a worker instead of the visitor. The hole was a risk in isolation.

Analyzing the Result

In this case, the visitor wwas actually on a worksite in an area where self-storage workers could be found at any time. And with some work sites, there are areas where workers will be the only ones allowed, while there are others, as in this case, where a visitor could be just about anywhere. Workers are always the priority when it comes to safety culture and safety protcol, but visitors should also be considered, especially in cases where a visitor could reasonably occupy much of the same space as workers.

The bottom line here is: It should not matter whether your workspace is occupied only by workers or may have visitors. The safety officer should probably consider a safety culture that goes beyond the workers themselves and addresses the entire worksite. Due diligence is always the wise path to take in matters like these. Always keep that in mind in your safety training; educate your workers about keeping site viisitors safe as much as themselves, and note any potential hazards for visitors promptly to supervisors or management so they can be addressed.