Filled to the brim with heavy pallets and bristling with lifting equipment, warehouses are subject to a long list of regulations and health and safety guidance. Adhering to these is key to ensuring long-term continuity and keeping staff and stock protected.
At LTS Global Solutions, we’ve been providing advanced warehousing solutions for more than a quarter of a century. Our expert team has put together this complete guide to warehouse compliance to help you understand what’s expected of you if you run your own warehouse and the benefits of staying compliant.
What Does Warehouse Compliance Mean?
There is a selection of regulations and guidelines that apply to warehouses, which we’ll get into shortly. Put simply, warehouse compliance means understanding the specific hazards that your working environment presents and implementing appropriate measures to mitigate them.
This needs to be done with the relevant regulations in mind, and it’s your responsibility as the employer and warehouse operator to ensure hazards are prevented as far as is ‘reasonably practicable’. The basis of your compliance efforts should be a thorough risk assessment, which you are legally required to complete.
Key Warehouse Compliance Practices
Warehouses are subject to a selection of regulations and guidelines, designed to ensure workplace safety for operatives and minimise the risk of injury:
- Health and Safety at Work Act – places general requirements on employers to provide employees with appropriate tools, protective equipment and adequate training, and mandates that employers with five or more staff must have a written health and safety policy
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) – states that all work equipment must be safe and properly maintained, and that systems be put in place to ensure this
- Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) – legislation requiring employers to report workplace accidents, as well as near misses, that have or could have caused death, serious injury or absences of more than seven days to the HSE (failure to do so could result in legal action)
- Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER) – mandates that all lifting equipment must be properly and regularly maintained by a competent person, that lifting operations need to be carefully planned and records of all actions must be kept
- Pressure System Safety Regulations (PSSR) – if your warehouse is equipped with pressurised systems, including high-powered air conditioning units used for temperature-controlled environments, you will have to adhere to the PSSR, and ensure this equipment is regularly inspected
- HSG76 – the HSE’s complete guide to maintaining health and safety compliance in warehouse environments, covering risk assessments, workforce management, preventing common accidents and best practices for manual and mechanical handling
- HSG65 – general guidance from the HSE for managing workplace health and safety
Benefits of Warehouse Compliance
Keeping your warehouse compliant has a number of major benefits, including:
Improved Health and Safety
Ensuring compliance with warehouse regulations and guidance helps keep your staff safe and prevent avoidable injuries.
Reduced Legal Risk
Non-compliance leaves you vulnerable to legal ramifications, especially if an accident occurs.
Enhanced Operational Efficiency
Implementing robust structures and procedures often has a knock-on effect on the overall efficiency and productivity of your warehouse.
Better Reputation and Credibility
Accidents and lawsuits can leave a damaging mark on the reputation of your business, whereas consistent compliance reflects well on you as a business and as an employer.
Lower Insurance Costs
By reducing the likelihood of claims, warehouse compliance can keep insurance costs to a minimum, saving you money in the long-term.
Warehouse Compliance Tips
Regular Staff Training
Regular training ensures your staff understand how to safely perform their day-to-day duties. This is especially important where lifting equipment is concerned. Training helps prevent accidents, keep your staff safer and demonstrate to governing bodies such as the HSE that you take health and safety seriously.
Routine Safety Checks
Routine safety checks are a key part of any warehouse health and safety regime. This means inspecting equipment, racking, stock and anything used in the course of your employees’ day-to-day duties. Faults or concerns should be flagged and addressed as quickly as possible.
Safety-First Culture
Workplace culture plays a significant role in preventing accidents. It’s important to foster a culture where your staff take their own safety and that of their colleagues seriously. This helps ensure the procedures and practices you put in place are adhered to.
Efficient Inventory Management
Carefully managing your inventory not only helps you ensure health and safety but also makes compliance with quality and industry standards far easier. Effective inventory management prevents racking from becoming overloaded and stops goods from piling up in unsuitable places. It also provides you with a comprehensive audit trail.
Accurate Record Keeping
With everything, from health and safety to inventory management, record keeping is crucial. In fact, in several of the pieces of legislation listed above, it’s legally required in order to maintain compliance. Accurate records also serve your purposes as a warehouse operator, helping you keep track of your own operations.
How Warehouse Management Systems Can Help with Compliance
Warehouse Management Systems (WMSs) can be extremely helpful when it comes to warehouse compliance. They enable you to automate and simplify a wide range of processes, especially inventory management. As we’ve discussed, effective inventory management aids in upholding safe stock placement and rotation, but it also provides audit trails.
Audit trails make it exceptionally easy to demonstrate your compliance in the case of inspections from bodies such as the HSE.
Warehousing at LTS Global Solutions
At LTS Global Solutions, we offer a stress-free alternative to jumping through warehouse compliance hoops yourself. We operate a compliant, safe and accredited warehouse.
We’ve been providing reliable, cost-effective warehousing solutions for more than 25 years and offer a range of specialised services, including ambient storage, pallet storage, food warehousing and more. Whatever you need to store, and for however long, we can help.
For a free warehousing quote, contact our friendly team today by calling 0121 753 0080, emailing info@ltsglobalsolutions.com or filling out our contact form.
