Prior planning prevents possible progress problems
There will always be a need for people to work at height. With that comes the simple reality that the risk of an accident is always present, it can never be entirely removed.
However careful and thorough planning prior to starting work can go a long way to making sure the probability of an accident happening is significantly closer to zero than it is to one.
What is work at height?
By the letter of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW) work at height is defined by any situation where “a fall by a person from one level to another … is reasonably likely to cause injury to the person or another person.”
Exactly what this can look like will vary from job site to job site as well as for different types of work. But the typical areas where work at height is undertaken include elevated workplaces (e.g. roofs), openings (stairwells, uninstalled skylights), edges (mezzanine floors), and non-trafficable surfaces (some roof sheeting and other similar materials).
Identifying the risks
The first step of planning safe work at height is to take a moment to identify what fall risks are actually present at the workplace.
While many height safety risks are outlined in the regulation, or can be identified with relative ease, there are a substantial number of fall risks that require a more attentive eye.
These include areas where workers are working on slopes, or on the ground near excavation works.
One important aspect to keep in mind is that in many cases, especially in the construction industries, it is often thought that work at height only begins on a building’s second storey. Unfortunately, the data consistently shows that most serious and fatal falls occur from heights of six metres or less, which is only a single storey.
Consider the work to be done
The next aspect of planning for safe work at height is to consider what work is needing to be completed, the time it will take, and the equipment/materials that will be required. How many workers are going to be accessing the area to complete the job?
This all helps to build a profile of the type of risks that workers may be exposed to, as well as the length of time they will be exposed to those risks. This all feeds into determining what the appropriate mitigation for each should be.
Risk assessment
With both the potential risks and the work now known, the next step in planning is to complete a risk assessment.
Completing this step can require a level of creative thinking, as it requires imaging what the potential consequences of an accident are along with determining how likely it is to occur.
At the conclusion of this step there will be a list of potential risks that can be prioritised according to a mix of their likelihood and potential severity.
Design and implement control measures
Once the risk assessment is completed, the next step is to take those results and determine what control measures needs to be put in place to reduce both the severity of a potential accident as well as its likelihood.
What these controls look like will depend on the outcome of every step completed so far and what decided to be “reasonably practicable” when looking at the hierarchy of risk controls.
For height safety in particular, control measure can take on many forms ranging from not accessing the area in the first place through to prevention systems like guardrails and total restraint to arrest systems that won’t stop a fall but will stop a worker from hitting the ground if they do.
All the risks and their respective control measures should be outlined in a safe work method statement (SWMS).
Incident response and rescue
It is all too easy to assume that once the risks have been identified and control measures implemented that the job is done. However, the key thing about accidents is that they are, by their very nature, events that are unexpected.
Emergency response and rescue plans are critical for workplaces to have. They should also be regularly trained, rehearsed and understood by each team member and worker.
In the event of a fall, where a worker is hanging in their harness, suspension trauma can appear in short time, and from there can quickly become fatal.
Ongoing monitoring
Once work begins, it needs to be closely watched and monitored to ensure that the safety of workers is not compromised.
Changes in the environment, and unexpected outcomes from work can result in the risk profile worsening. This can mean an increased chance of a fall from height for workers, or a protection system not functioning as it was designed.
Part of undertaking safe work at height is having systems in place that continuously review the work and the conditions. Should this start to move outside of a safe window, work should be stopped and workers removed from the work area until the conditions improve, or the situation assessed and new controls implemented.
Partners in protecting people
Height Safety Engineers have been in the business of protecting people for over 20 years. Our team is made up of the most experienced height safety and fall protection specialists in the country.
Start your safety journey today by talking to us about your work at heights needs. Call us on 1300 884 978, email us enquiries@heightsafety.net or contact us here.
