4 Tips for Lifting Heavy Loads in the Warehouse

Wherever you work, you want to minimize your chance of injury. However, when you work in a warehouse, you are particularly at risk of getting injured on the job. It’s the nature of the work you do – you work with heavy machinery, heavy loads, and sometimes accidents happen.

However, you can take steps to minimize your chances of getting injured while working, and one area where you can particularly do this is when lifting. Lifting injuries are some of the most common workplace injuries there are, and many of them can be quite serious.

There are plenty of tools out there to help you avoid getting injured at work, so make sure you’re using them.

Rely on Your Machinery

You’ve got machinery to help you with your lifting, so if in doubt, use it. Sure, you might be able to do it yourself, but is it worth a trip to the hospital? When you’ve not got your machinery around, it might be quicker to try and get the job done by hand, but it’s important you don’t stretch yourself too much. Understand your capabilities and avoid heavy lifting when possible. Seek help on heavy lifts or use the right machinery.

Make Sure Heavy Items are Properly Secured

When you’re lifting heavy items, it’s particularly important they are properly secured. If you’re moving heavy bundles of paper, cardboard, or lumber, ready for recycling, then the strapping needs to be particularly strong and using galvanized steel wire can be the difference between a simple job and an accident waiting to happen.

Whenever you’re working with heavy materials it’s important to make sure they are well secured before transporting them, otherwise you can put yourself and members of the public in danger.

Correct Lifting Technique

Even light loads can cause serious problems if the correct lifting technique isn’t used. Working in a warehouse is a physically intensive job, and you’re constantly lifting and moving things.

Unfortunately, this puts workers at risk of back injuries that can develop into serious problems. You need to be out there, able to work at full capacity every day, but back pain is one of the most common reasons for employees missing work across all industries.

You can help limit this risk by using good lifting technique:

• Keep a wide base of support
• Bend from the knees
• Keep good posture with your back
• Lift slowly as opposed to a jerky motion
• Keep the weight close to your body

Regular Training

Injuries sustained through lifting can put a lot of strain on warehouse managers, so it’s in their best interests to make sure workers are well trained.

It might seem like a small detail, but warehouse workers are constantly lifting heavy items, and exposing themselves to the risk of injury. By giving workers regular reminders of the right procedures, you can reduce their risk of injury, meaning you have healthy, happy workers, who are capable of giving their best work every day.