“I live on the 32nd floor; didn’t I tell you?”
You’ve identified that your delivery driver carries out the most manual handling operations of all your staff. What can you learn from a major high street retailer who, when faced with the same problem, spent a lot of time and effort on it?
Final destination
Delivering goods to your customers is becoming an issue that you’ve been struggling to manage. Products seem to be getting heavier and drivers increasingly likely to say “I’m not lifting that”. Your customers aren’t much help either. A favourite trick is to say there aren’t any obstructions to the final location of the product, there’s a lift, or other issues that aren’t quite the case when your delivery driver arrives. We’ve spoken to a high street electrical goods retailer who told us this has been one of their biggest safety concerns. Primarily, because they’ve been hit so hard by lost time due to back injuries and then compensation claims from their staff. What did we learn?
Identifying the problems
They completed a detailed risk assessment. Is that it? Not quite, this risk assessment identified all of the potential problems their delivery drivers had to deal with during their working day. They looked at a number of problem scenarios, which included:
• the customer lives in a block of flats, which although it has a lift, is always broken
• the delivery destination that doesn’t have room for a van or lorry to stop anywhere near
• the product is exceptionally large, heavy and very awkward to manoeuvre, particularly up steps.
Tip. Do your own risk assessment, involving your delivery staff to find out where they have their biggest problems. Once you’ve identified the risks, identify some standard options, e.g. two people must be present or a manual handling aid must be used.
Finding solutions
Unfortunately they didn’t find a single cure which simply made manual handling risks disappear. But they did find a number of solutions that have dramatically reduced their potential liability. What are they?
1. Getting the customer to be more honest. They now ask for a fairly detailed report from the customer. Some example questions are: Can they park outside the front door? Are there any steps to negotiate?
2. Delivering to the door only.
3. Getting the manufacturer to supply direct. This also reduces manual handling in the warehouse as well as at the customer’s house.
4. Investing in more advanced manual handling aids. (See The next step).
Tip. Ask your customer the same questions before leaving the yard. Finding out if there are potential problems before the journey starts means you can prepare. You might need to send a second person to help. Or maybe the delivery will have to go on a different vehicle with a mechanical aid such as a tailgate lift. It’s far better to identify problems before your driver is presented with them, otherwise he’ll have to come up with an on-the-spot solution. This will invariably be one that’s not as safe as it should be. Worst case, it could potentially injure the driver and your customer, if they’ve been roped in to help, or it could result in damage to your stock.
The next step
The HSE have published guidance on various handling aids, which includes when and what type of equipment is best.To download it visit http://healthandsafety.indicator.co.uk (HS 04.19.03)
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