Administrative Controls – What Can You Do?

Placing a worker in a situation where they are required to access dangerous heights in order to do their job is not a decision that should be made lightly. The ANSI Fall Hazard Hierarchy involves different levels of protecting workers from the hazards of heights.  

Under ANSI Z359.2, the ANSI Fall Hazard Hierarchy goes as follows:
1. Elimination or Substitution
2. Passive Fall Protection
3. Active Fall Restraint
4. Active Fall Arrest
5. Administrative Controls

To learn more about what the different levels of the hierarchy represent, you can visit this blog. 

For the purposes of this blog, we are going to explore the final level of the hierarchy—administrative controls.  

Under ANSI Z359.0, Administrative Controls (definition 2.4) have been defined as: 
“Employer mandated safe work practices or procedures that are designed to prevent exposure to a fall by signaling or warning an authorized person to avoid approaching a fall hazard.”   

There are many different types of administrative controls that can enhance the protection of people who work at height. As a result, it’s important to know your options so that you can find a solution that will be most effective for you, your employees, and your work environment.

Warning Signs
If there are areas at height that legally require fall protection, but the area does not look like it needs protection, warning signs can be a great reminder. Warning signs can be a low-cost and easily-applied way to remind people about the hazards of different work spaces. When there is an area that has been marked as potentially dangerous, people are more likely to adhere to the safety requirements in that space. It also shows federal OSHA inspectors that the safety manager of a company is aware of the hazards that are present in a work location. Admittedly, placing a sign is not a guaranteed way to ensure that people working at height will use fall protection equipment. However, warning signs are a great way to provide a friendly reminder that they are entering a dangerous zone.

Training
Although it may be difficult to find time to hold a fall protection training session, training can be one of the most direct ways to ensure that employees understand the fall hazards in the workplace and how they can protect themselves. Depending upon your situation, there are several different ways that training can be approached. Training for first time fall protection users should be more of a hands-on demonstration where the Authorized User is instructed by a Competent Person on how to identify fall hazards, how to properly don a harness, and how to move around an area with fall hazards without being exposed to the dangers.

An annual fall protection training refresher course for people who use fall protection relatively  frequently could be as simple as watching a brief training video administered by a Competent Person. Another way to quickly assess an employee’s fall protection knowledge (as part of a refresher on fall protection techniques) is for a Competent Person to test the employee’s skill and familiarity with using fall protection devices and assessing hazards at height.  

Despite the fact that training can feel like it’s time consuming, the benefits will always outweigh any lost time. Remember: when a fall in the workplace occurs, there are many hours of lost work time and a massive decrease in productivity occurs. By taking just one hour out of one work week once or twice a year to ensure proper employee fall protection training, you can save hours of lost time and possibly even the lives of your employees.

Fall protection warning signs and training sessions are the most popular forms of administrative controls because they involve the most direct interaction with people who work at height. There are a few additional ways that employers can apply administrative controls to remind employees when fall protection is needed in the workplace. Lighting a can draw extra attention to a hazard or a warning sign. But remember, more complex controls will require more frequent maintenance and administrative monitoring than less complex variations. 

Until the next time, stay safe up there!

Do you have other effective ways that you apply administrative controls for fall protection enforcement? Tell us about it in the comment section below!