Recently, I had a conversation with a safety director from a large company that has operations all over the globe. He was telling me about how they used to have a lot of slip and falls due to ice and snow. They investigated ways to reduce winter slip and fall accidents and concluded it was time to invest in ice cleats. He went on to describe how they did all their research, testing, due diligence, etc. and ended up buying what they believed was the best ice cleat at the time. (Disclaimer: This isn’t an ice cleat my company manufactures.)

On particularly cold winter days when I was a kid, my mother would often give me a choice regarding outerwear, “Either wear your winter coat or don’t go outside,” she would say, effectively offering me a Hobson’s Choice - no choice at all. Since I was just a seven-year-old kid, my mom wasn’t interested in empowering me or helping me to build my decision-making skills. She simply wanted me to be warm and not get sick. There are many companies that offer this same “no choice” when it comes to safety items – either comply with OSHA workplace safety or go home.

I was speaking with a corporate safety director the other day about the challenges his workforce faces with employee buy-ins and working in the ice and snow. He has used our ice cleats in the past with good success. Recently, his company started a new safety initiative: ZERO winter slip, trip and fall incidents. This can be hard goal to reach (but not impossible). After our discussion, he realized that just buying winter traction aids and making them available to everyone was good, but not good enough to achieve his goal. Things needed to change.

I recently spoke with a customer who has been buying our ice cleats for years. They’ve had a few slip and fall accidents on the ice and snow this winter and are, understandably, very frustrated. After the accident investigations, they realized each incident had the same the root cause: None of the employees who fell were wearing the ice cleats and winter traction aids that were being provided. Does this sound familiar to you? This is one of the most frustrating, but preventable, things a safety professional can hear. Have you ever noticed problems with employee engagement? Most likely, you hav[…]

If you’re a safety manager, chances are, reducing winter slips and falls are top of mind right now. There are many considerations when searching for the perfect ice cleat or traction aid – including whether to use replaceable or permanent spikes – so we’re going to try to make that decision as easy as possible for you if you can only choose one. Replacing spikes in traction footwear is indeed a cost-saving option. It allows you to re-use existing footwear for just a few dollars a pair. The downside?

Resistance to change is simply part of human nature. If you want to see that resistance in action, try introducing a new piece of PPE to an established workforce. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the following response when discussing ice cleats with a safety manager: “It’s not even worth buying ice cleats this winter. I know my guys. They’ll never bother to put them on.”