What’s the Most Common Fall Hazard Mistake – Even Among Experienced Installers? 

Ask any safety professional what worries them most, and the answer is rarely a hazard workers don’t recognize. It’s the shortcut they know is risky and do anyway.

In this Q&A from our Competent Person Fall Protection Training course, Josh Hooper – EHS Specialist at Arch Electric and former Navy shipboard firefighter – breaks down the six factors he sees behind almost every fall hazard mistake, from rookie ignorance to a stigma against stopping work. His answer includes a real story about experienced installers skipping a tie-off step without even realizing it, and a simple question he says every worker should ask before doing a task that feels unsafe.

This clip comes from the Professional Perspectives Module in HeatSpring’s new Competent Person Fall Protection Training course. 

Ready to get your crew trained up? Enroll your team today!

Transcript below.

Q: What is the most common fall hazard mistake that you see, even from experienced installers?

There are at least six common hazards we deal with any time we put ourselves in a fall hazard situation: time, probability, productivity, ignorance, lack of resources, and poor stop-work-authority culture. Those are probably your big six.

Time and productivity

When you show up to a job site, you want to get the job done as quickly as possible so you can go home. That’s how we all operated in the Navy – what do we have to do to go home, unless you’re on deployment, and then it’s what do I have to do to get off work. Everybody’s trying to be as efficient as possible, and sometimes that efficiency is allowed to supersede safety. It’s not the right way to do it, but it happens.

People also want to be good employees – do a good job, do it quickly, do it efficiently, and get as much production out of their day as possible so they can move to the next job site without having to come back.

Probability

If you think about how many deaths occur versus the number of people in fall hazard situations on a daily basis, it’s a high number – one of the highest causes of death in the construction industry. But in the grand scheme of things, that number isn’t as high as you’d think, because we have a natural ability to protect ourselves. It takes a slip, trip, or fall – a low-probability event – combined with poor PPE.

Because you’re trying to be time-efficient, you trust that your equipment is in the same condition it was yesterday – not frayed, not broken, going to work – so you skip the inspection. That “it’s not going to happen to me” mindset is a common mistake.

Ignorance

This one shows up more with younger personnel exposed to fall hazards for the first time: not understanding the regulations, the requirements, or the severity of the situation they’re putting themselves in. Not knowing isn’t an excuse, but it’s used as one.

I’ve also seen a version of this with experienced installers. Someone goes up on a roof to set D-rings for the rest of the crew. They set the first D-ring, and – with tools and equipment still in hand – go set the second D-ring without clipping into the first. By the time the second D-ring is set, they assume they’re already tied off, so they carry on with their day and never actually tie off. Fortunately, in the case I saw, it never resulted in a fall.

Lack of resources

Some companies need new equipment, but the money isn’t always there to equip everyone – or the crew isn’t telling the people who order equipment that it needs to be replaced.

Poor stop-work authority

If a company doesn’t stress stop-work authority, the construction industry stigma is “shut your mouth and do your job.” That stigma needs to be broken – productivity is never more important than someone’s life.

If you ever feel like what you’re being asked to do is unsafe, the first question I’d ask the person telling you to do the work is: would you do it yourself – not “have you done it before,” but would you do it right now? A lot of people have done something in the past, but that doesn’t mean it was the right way to do it. Often the person telling you to do it is older, more aware of the dangers, and asking you to do it so they don’t have to put themselves in that situation.

Stop-work authority should be there. Employees are protected. You should never have to do anything you feel is unsafe.

Putting it together

The odds of something happening to you personally are low – but you also have to account for what you’re not in control of: other people on the road, other people relying on your fall protection, black ice, a loose shingle nobody noticed until you stepped on it. All of those factors add up.

So: time, probability, productivity, ignorance, lack of resources, and stop-work authority. Those are the six.