Five hot tips for safer manual handling

Lift it, shift it and handle it safely!

Manual handling tasks are common across construction sites. Lifting heavy equipment, unloading supplies like bags of concrete and using heavy or vibrating tools that take a toll on your body are often just part of the job. However, manual handling injuries also account for the majority of workplace incidents.

Musculoskeletal disorders, or sprains and strains from pulling, pushing, moving and repetitive movements, are a massive issue despite the general level of safety awareness in the industry. So, it’s always good to have a regular refresher on what constitutes safe manual handling.

What kind of injuries can occur from manual handling?

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) affect the bones, muscles, cartilage, tendons, ligaments and joints along with the connective tissues in your body. MSD can occur gradually over a long period of time, through repetitive movements or wear and tear on the body or your health, or they can occur suddenly or acutely, from a sudden change of body position for example.

According to Safe Work Australia, musculoskeletal disorders include injuries such as:

• Sprains and strains of muscles, ligaments and tendons
• Back injuries including damage to the muscles, tendons, ligaments, spinal discs, nerves, joints and bones
• Joint and bone injuries or degeneration, including injuries to the shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, ankle, hands and feet
• Nerve injuries or compression, for example, carpal tunnel syndrome
• Muscular and vascular disorders as a result of hand-arm vibration
• Soft tissue injuries such as hernias
• Chronic pain which typically lasts longer than three months
• Acute pain lasting less than three months

Here are five tips to reduce hazards, prevent accidents, help you keep your team safe and reduce injuries to people at work.

Don’t be a hero

Trying to lift something heavy by yourself is often the cause of injuries. There’s no need to take the load on your own - grab a work mate and work together to move things safely.

Bend the knees to save your back

It’s easy to forget about proper posture when you’re busy and your mind is on the job - but bending at the knees instead of at the hips will take an enormous amount of strain off your back.

Use mechanical advantage

Got a trolley or a pallet jack nearby? Is there a machine or tool that can take some of the load off your body? Wherever you can use mechanical advantage, you should do so!

Think it through

Planning what you need to move, how you’re going to shift it, and whether you need to move any obstructions out of the way will ensure you don’t put yourself in harm’s way. Getting halfway across your work site with a heavy load and then having to use an awkward body position to set it down means you haven’t thought it through properly!

Always do a risk assessment first

You should always carry out a risk assessment for any potentially hazardous manual tasks. Think about postures, movements or ‘push and pull’ type forces that could cause people harm, and how you can engineer out the issues and move your load safely.

Consider the weight, awkwardness, size and travelling path of the item you have to move. You should also take a look at how this task interacts with others and what needs to happen for you to shift a load safely.

Safe manual handling is achievable with the right tools, procedures and attitude! Getting a good handle on risk control and handling techniques will help keep your team safe when lifting, pulling, handling and carrying workplace materials.

Get the right tools for safe manual handling

With a huge range of manual handling tools and equipment, including lifting slings, goods storage cages for lifting building materials with a hoist or crane, lifting chains for positioning heavy objects onto truck beds for example, and trolleys such as our plasterboard trolleys which are great for moving awkward sheets of material on site.

Give our friendly team a call for great prices and fast shipping Australia wide!