Back in 2010, if you were to type the term “ice cleats” into Google, you would find roughly 418,000 results. Trust me; I’ve done that search plenty over the years. Try the same search now and you will find over 8,200,000 results! So what does this tell you? For one thing, ice cleats are far more popular and more prevalent in today’s world than they were just four or five years ago. I would make the simple argument that the marketplace would not have expanded so quickly if ice cleats did not work. But of course your question, “do ice cleats even work?” cannot be answered quite that simply.

Far and away, the most common complaint we hear is that people hate taking their ice cleats on and off throughout the day, especially when they walk from outside to inside frequently. Who can blame them? Winter slips and falls on snow and ice are often the number one cause of record-able incidents. While ice cleats seem like an obvious solution to reduce accidents, there are two realities that complicate the issue: 1) Most jobs do not exist exclusively on ice and snow. 2) Most ice cleats are good at one thing and one thing only – increase traction on ice and snow.

It’s not as difficult as you may think to reduce – and even eliminate – winter slips and falls on ice and snow. In fact, here are three ways to reduce accidents: 1. Eliminate The Act of Walking on Compromised Surfaces Think about all of the slip and fall accidents and slip hazard jobs that happened in your organization last winter while working outdoors and indoors. If you can eliminate walking in those areas, all of those accidents go away, right? And while this is easier said than done, it’s not impossible. Accomplishing this in one or two areas will make a dramatic difference in reducing yo[…]

Sometimes you think you've heard it all, and we have when it comes to excuses why people don't want to wear ice cleats. Time for a top 6 list... Too expensive. My employees won’t wear them. Can’t wear indoors. Can’t drive with them on. Employees won’t take care of them. We've tried everything and nothing works in my environment. Reality of buying the right ice traction for shoes or ice cleats from the right manufacturer. Ice cleats are far less expensive than the resulting costs associated with a slip and fall. Have you ever given your employees the chance to try them? If you did and they prov[…]

Most ice cleats are NOT safe to wear indoors. Traditional ice cleats are engineered for one thing and one thing only - preventing slip and fall incidents on ice. That’s it. Since, obviously, Ice and snow don’t exist indoors, manufacturers don’t concentrate on indoor flooring materials when developing ice cleats to prevent slips and falls. This can severely complicate a company’s goal of reducing slip and fall incidents because, if traditional ice cleats are worn indoors, your employees are now at a high risk of causing a slip hazard.

You may be surprised to learn that companies – no matter the size – approach the problem of winter slips and falls on snow and ice is practically the same manner. There is one big difference though:  Large companies don’t just “set it and forget it” when it comes to safety. They learn and evolve. Smaller companies, however, may implement a slips, trips and falls safety policy or program, and then divert their attention once it’s up and running. And that can be a costly mistake.