Over the past months, we’ve produced a number of safety blogs focused on COVID safety, as AMS Fulfillment has been a leader in protecting employees during the pandemic. Every measure that could be taken for employee protection was taken, including a number of very successful vaccine clinics held on the AMS campus. The AMS vaccination rate is 90% fully vaccinated. We continue promoting the clinics, including a booster shot this coming week for the safety of our employees. But we also know that while the COVID protection effort is going on, general safety practices and training have to be engaged as well.
According to an article produced by Cyzerg.com on warehouse safety, the most common workplace injuries in warehouses are: Heavy Equipment Accidents; Slips, Trips, and Falls; Exposure to Chemicals; Being Hit by Falling Objects; and Machine Entanglement. The article goes on to list tips for the warehouse safety experts to follow.
AMS has an outstanding safety record and we know this is from the training and attention given to safety. Recently we saw that once again, in September, there were NO lost time injuries in any AMS warehouse.
What Does Lost Time Injury (LTI) Mean? According to Safopedia.com, a lost time injury is an injury sustained on the job by an employee that results in the loss of productive work time. An injury is considered an LTI only when the injured worker: 1) Is unable to perform regular job duties; 2) Takes time off for recovery, and 3) Is assigned modified work duties while recovering.
The reason LTIs are so significant is that they are key indicators of the effectiveness of the company’s safety program. To find out more about AMS’ safety program and LTIs specifically, we asked Matthew Warholy, AMS Security & Safety Supervisor for his comments:
“At AMS, the fact that our Lost Time Injury rate is very low is due to our O.S.H.A. safety training courses every month and the amount of employees that have been through the course.
“A large portion of our employees that have been through the course are now empowered to look out for and report any safety issues. We can’t do it alone. The employees are our eyes in the warehouses. We have been able to curtail a large portion of accidents and injuries with simple preventative maintenance. That goes a long way. Coming up in 2022, we will be offering our OSHA course in Spanish for our non-English and limited English speaking employees who haven’t been able to take advantage of our current course. This will empower the majority of our workforce to use our safety initiatives.
“With our peak season looming, our workforce increases significantly. Safety is of the highest regard in our warehouses.
“The majority of our injuries are caused by simply not paying attention to surroundings or taking shortcuts while working. These injuries create workers comp claims which can be expensive and cause our insurance rates to rise. Keeping injuries to our employees low ensures safer work locations, healthy employees and lower insurance premiums. As I stated earlier, preventative maintenance goes a long way.”