How can I keep scaffolding safe at work?

Any construction worker who spends a fair amount of time working on a scaffold needs to make safety their number one priority. This is easy enough to do when first starting out working on a scaffold. However, after a few years of working on one, it’s easy to get lazy and complacent. To help keep scaffold safety fresh on your mind, take a minute to review the following scaffold safety tips:

Get safety trained:

If you haven’t been formally trained on how to safely use a scaffold, ask your boss for safety training now. Your training needs to be performed by a person who is qualified to teach you how to safely use a scaffold.

This training should also provide general advice about electricity dangers, falling risks and preventing objects from falling on others. You also need to learn about the load capabilities of your scaffold.

Ask for retraining and refresher training: Sometimes the scaffold or the job circumstances change, and this will require retraining for the new situation. Also, you should remember to get refreshed on safety from time to time so that you never forget the importance of certain details.

Learn how to assemble and disassemble the scaffold: A competent and thoroughly trained individual is the only one who should supervise the erection of your scaffold. If you’ve never been trained to erect a scaffold, consider getting trained. Even if you’re not the one assigned to the task of supervising this process, the more people on the job who understand the intricacies of building and dismantling your scaffold the better.

Inspect the scaffold: A thorough scaffold inspection to look for loose, worn out or broken parts is a must before climbing and working on the device.

There is a lot more you need to keep in mind for safe scaffold use — such as always wearing a hardhat and safety harness, and always using nonskid shoes. If, in spite of your best efforts, you suffered a scaffold-related injury, investigate your ability to file a workers’ compensation claim now.