Increase Workplace Safety - Winter Weather Safety Training

Win­ter weath­er can bring on a vari­ety of dan­gers inside or out­side the office. Ensure to wear warm cloth­ing when work­ing out­side and to pri­or­i­tize safe­ty in trav­el. Mois­ture can tend to track indoors so be cer­tain to use cau­tion and wet floor signs.

Video Tran­script:

Han­nah:

Come in.

Hal­ston:

Hey.

Han­nah:

Hey, how are you?

Hal­ston:

I’m great. How’s it going? Halston.

Han­nah:

Good. Han­nah, nice to meet you.

Hal­ston:

So I am super glad you’re let­ting me come vis­it your account. Would you tell me a lit­tle bit about what your account is and what you do?

Han­nah:

Yeah, so again, I’m Han­nah. I am an account man­ag­er with the Budd Group. I’m cur­rent­ly assigned to Wake For­est Uni­ver­si­ty ath­let­ic facil­i­ties and we take care of their day to day work and their spe­cial event coverage.

Hal­ston:

Awe­some. Well it sounds like a lot of work. So I’ve been asked to come around and look at some of our accounts and just see what kind of risks and haz­ards we face from a safe­ty per­spec­tive, and specif­i­cal­ly now that it’s get­ting cold out­side, I was hop­ing you could show me some chal­lenges or haz­ards that your employ­ees face when it gets cold outside.

Han­nah:

That would be great. The first thing I want to show you is down by the dump­ster. Give me about 15 min­utes to fin­ish up here and we can head out there.

Hal­ston:

All right. I’m excit­ed. Can’t wait.

Han­nah:

Oh, and one thing. Make sure you change your clothes. It’s pret­ty dirty down there.

Hal­ston:

All right. Thank you.

Han­nah:

Thanks Hal­ston. What are you wearing?

Hal­ston:

You told me to change.

Han­nah:

It’s 20 degrees out­side. You need to go change again and put some lay­ers on.

Hal­ston:

All right, fine. All right, I’m ready to work. What do you think?

Han­nah:

Hal­ston, you look ridicu­lous. You put way too much on. My employ­ees can’t work in this. You need to go change. Take some lay­ers off so you can move around.

Hal­ston:

Jeez, Louise. All right, I’ll try again. All right. Third time’s a charm. How’d I do?

Han­nah:

Final­ly. It looks like you’re ready to work. That’s actu­al­ly one of the biggest prob­lems I face when there’s inclement weath­er, my employ­ees don’t know what to wear. It’s impor­tant for them to know to wear a com­fy hat, a light jack­et, or a heavy jack­et, your Budd uni­form shirt, reg­u­lar pants ​‚and some com­fy and reli­able shoes, and some gloves that you can work in.

Hal­ston:

All right, good. Well, what do you have for me to see next?

Han­nah:

Okay. Next I want to show you an issue that we have on our out­side stairs.

Hal­ston:

All right, let’s go to it. All right team, time for your win­ter weath­er safe­ty train­ing, pro safe­ty tip num­ber one. Any­time you’re com­ing to work, make sure you’re dressed to suc­ceed on that job. Some­times this will mean wear­ing lay­ers, espe­cial­ly if it’s cold out­side, and you’ll be going from inside to out­side a lot. And final­ly, if you’re not sure what you should be wear­ing, just ask your manager.

Hal­ston:

All right, so what are we look­ing at here?

Han­nah:

Okay, the next thing I want to show you is what I see a lot of times when we have a win­ter storm com­ing, our facil­i­ties teams can be a lit­tle ram­bunc­tious with the ice melt. It caus­es a buildup and it’s real­ly a haz­ard for my team, so I tell them, you real­ly spread it out to make sure that you won’t slip on it. This ensures their safe­ty and also the safe­ty of our cus­tomers and our patrons.

Hal­ston:

That’s great. Yeah. Some­times when peo­ple get over eager with ice melt, it’s not even doing the job of melt­ing the ice any­more. It actu­al­ly just becomes a trip­ping hazard.

Han­nah:

That’s right.

Hal­ston:

So that’s great. Awe­some. Well thanks for show­ing me this. What do you say we head back up to the office and kind of con­clude things?

Han­nah:

Sounds good.

Hal­ston:

Time for win­ter weath­er pro safe­ty tip num­ber two. When you’re walk­ing around dur­ing or after a win­ter event, take extra cau­tion and look out for ice and water. Also, if you see built up ice melt, be care­ful because that can cre­ate a slip­ping haz­ard. If you find this, take some time to spread it out, but do not use your bare hands because the chem­i­cal in the ice melt could irri­tate your skin.

Han­nah:

Come on in.

Hal­ston:

It’s cold out there.

Han­nah:

Whoa, be care­ful. There’s a lot of water right there.

Hal­ston:

Oh my good­ness. There is a ton of water and it makes the floor super slick.

Han­nah:

Yeah, that hap­pens a lot when we have snow and rain out. Peo­ple just track in the water, snow on their shoes and it melts everywhere.

Hal­ston:

Oh man. Well how do you guys han­dle this?

Han­nah:

Well, I’m always encour­ag­ing my employ­ees to make sure we have wet floor signs so that the cus­tomers and any patrons know that there was water spilled and a dry mop so they can soak it up real quickly.

Hal­ston:

Oh man. What?

Han­nah:

Get to work.

Hal­ston:

All right. Time for win­ter weath­er pro safe­ty tip num­ber three. Any­time there’s mois­ture out­side, peo­ple will track mois­ture into the build­ing entrances and it can make it for a slip­pery entrance. Make sure you have enough wet floor signs to keep the patrons and your team safe, and after putting on your slip resis­tant shoe cov­ers, use a dry mop to soak up all of the moisture.

Hal­ston:

Well, Han­nah, I’ve got to say I’m real­ly impressed with every­thing that you guys are doing here and how seri­ous­ly you’re tak­ing the safe­ty of your employ­ees. There’s just one more ques­tion I want­ed to ask you. If it’s snow­ing or there’s a big win­ter event that’s affect­ing your employ­ees’ trav­el or the clien­t’s trav­el, what do you ask your employ­ees to do?

Han­nah:

Absolute­ly. I always advise them to stay in close com­mu­ni­ca­tion with me so that I can update them reg­u­lar­ly on new weath­er reports and poten­tial build­ing clos­ings. Also, it’s real­ly impor­tant to stay active on the BHive because they can get a lot of noti­fi­ca­tions through that pro­gram that we have with our com­pa­ny. And last­ly, I always encour­age them if they feel at all unsafe to come to the job site, call me first, and I’ll do my best to work with them to keep them safe.

Hal­ston:

That’s great. I think that’s per­fect advice. All of our accounts are dif­fer­ent, but employ­ees just need to remem­ber that their safe­ty is the most impor­tant thing and if they feel like they’re stuck at home they should just give their man­ag­er a call.

Han­nah:

Absolute­ly.

Hal­ston:

Well, thanks for hav­ing me.

Han­nah:

Thank you.

Hal­ston:

I’ve enjoyed see­ing every­thing and hope­ful­ly we’ll be back soon.

Han­nah:

Great, thanks.

Hal­ston:

Okay team, time for your final win­ter weath­er pro safe­ty tip. If there is a win­ter storm warn­ing or you are wor­ried about not being able to get to work, get in touch with your man­ag­er imme­di­ate­ly. You can also look for updates on the BHive as to whether or not your site is open or closed. And final­ly, always remem­ber, noth­ing is more impor­tant than your safety.

The Budd Group strives to be a God-hon­or­ing com­pa­ny of excel­lence safe­ly deliv­er­ing ser­vices in jan­i­to­r­i­al, main­te­nance, and land­scap­ing; offer­ing devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for their employ­ees; and con­tribut­ing to their community.

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