Throughout the colder months of the year, you must continuously be wary of the dangers of slipping on the snow and ice.

And this is especially true at the tail end of winter. Warmer weather may lull you into a false sense of security, but thawing and refreezing can make roads and walkways even more treacherous.

Each year, hundreds of employees insured by SFM report falling because of snow and ice — it’s one of the most common causes of injuries.

In fact, about 674,000 cases of falls, slips and trips were reported by private employers 2021-22, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), with many of those incidents requiring employees to miss work because of the incident.

According to SFM claims data, 25 percent of ice- and snow-related falls occur in parking lots and 20 percent of slips and falls that occur in parking lots result in lost time from work.

Meanwhile, SFM estimates the average winter slip-and-fall lost-time claim costs range from $50,000 to $55,000. The costs — direct and indirect — mount quickly and can’t be ignored.

“Slips and falls during winter can be a major issue for worker safety,” said Director of Loss Prevention Lee Wendel. “But both workers and employers can take steps to mitigate the dangers and stay safe all winter long.”

Staying safe from slips and falls

Employee injuries sustained in falls are costly. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says workers’ compensation and medical costs associated with workplace fall incidents have been estimated at $70 billion annually in the U.S.

Despite the perils of getting around during winter, there are many preventive measures employers can implement to decrease the chance of on-the-job injuries.

• Make sure gutters and downspouts flow away from walkways to avoid the dangerous freeze-thaw-refreeze cycle
• Redirect any water flowing on walkways to avoid puddles
• Treat walkways at high-hazard times and warn employees about potential hazards
• Manage snow piles near walkways to avoid melting snow refreezing to ice
• Plow snow below the grade of walkways to minimize downward flow
• Repair walkways to eliminate uneven surfaces that collect water and ice
• Designate safe paths of travel to and from building to discourage potentially dangerous shortcuts

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports that trips, slips and falls are the second-most common cause of workplace injury. Also, 20-30 percent of workplace falls result in a moderate or severe injury, including deep bruising, broken bones and concussions.

These incidents can be even more serious. According to the most recent data from the BLS, work-related fatalities due to falls, slips, and trips have increased in recent years:

• 805 fatalities in 2020
• 850 fatalities in 2021
• 865 fatalities in 2022
• 885 fatalities in 2023

About 20 percent of all workplace deaths are attributed to slips, trips and falls, per OSHA.

Employers must ensure walking surfaces at the workplace are free of snow and ice, according to OSHA safety standards.

Remind employees about winter hazards using SFM resources

With a few simple precautions, falls on snow and ice resulting in costly injuries can be easily avoided. Employee awareness is key.

“It’s important to keep reminding employees of the risks of winter slips and falls, and how to avoid them, throughout the season,” Wendel said. “We’ve tried to make that easy for employers by offering a variety of different resources.”

Consider some tips from SFM:

• Do the penguin shuffle: Focus on your footing, walk flat-footed, take short steps to keep your center of balance over your feet
• Take it slow: Walk slowly on snow and ice to avoid a slip
• Wear proper footwear for the weather: Choose footwear with non-slip soles, deep treads and wide, low heels; add cleats or traction footwear for extra grip
• Carry only what you can: Carrying less or using a bag or backpack decreases your chance of falling — and keeps your hands free if you do
• Watch for changing conditions: Monitor the weather; cycles of freezing, melting and re-freezing are especially dangerous
• Don’t be distracted: Put your cellphone away while walking and focus on where you’re going
• Step down, not out, from curbs and cars: Falls in parking lots are common — step flat-footed off curbs, step down with both feet when exiting your vehicle
• Walk on marked paths and avoid short cuts: Short cuts are likely to be icy and put you in danger of slipping
• Report icy conditions: Tell a supervisor or maintenance person if you spot slippery areas so they can shovel or salt problem areas
• Spread salt on ice: If you spot a slippery area and salt is available, spread it yourself

These tips and being aware of winter conditions can go a long way toward ensuring a winter spent upright and safe.

“Winter in the Upper Midwest often extends into early spring,” Wendel said. “By taking the necessary precautions and staying vigilant, workers can remain safe.”

Originally posted January 2018; updated February 2025.

Cold, snowy and icy weather are coming soon. As the weather brings colder and more slippery conditions, it’s a good time to remind your employees to walk carefully when outdoors.

Our new video for employees aims to catch their attention and remind them of the dangers they face when walking through parking lots in winter weather.

Parking lot slips and falls are a common source of work-related injuries during the winter months, and exercising caution can help your employees avoid nasty accidents.

We offer many resources on our winter slips and falls page you can use to prevent these types of injuries among your employees.

Other considerations for parking lot slips and falls

Every state’s law is different, but typically employers are required to provide safe routes for employees from their vehicles into work.

This means if an employee is injured by tripping and falling in the designated parking lot on the way into or out from work, it could be considered a work injury, making the employee eligible for workers’ compensation medical and wage loss benefits.

It’s not uncommon, and the injuries are often serious.

Injuries aren’t just bad for your employees. Having a lot of claims can negatively affect your costs as an employer, too.

Keep parking lots maintained

It’s very important to make sure that parking lots are well-maintained — cleared of snow and ice in the winter and free of cracks and other trip hazards.

Make employees aware of hazards

Your employees can also play a role in avoiding slip-and-fall injuries by walking carefully and wearing appropriate footwear. See SFM’s winter slip-and-fall prevention page for posters, table tents and other resources you can use to keep fall prevention top of mind for employees.

Originally posted October 2027; updated January 2025.

You’ve probably heard that too much sitting is bad for your health.

According to the Mayo Clinic , sitting for long periods of time is linked with obesity and metabolic syndrome, as well as an increase in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Sitting for too long can also increase pain by tightening muscles and stiffening joints.

What can you do if you spend your workdays at a desk? The answer is simple — take frequent breaks and find ways to sit less.

Take steps to sit less

The good news is there are many steps you and your employees can take to break down the culture of prolonged sitting.

Here are four ideas for reducing chair time.

Get up and move

Find the time to move and stretch throughout the workday. Give yourself a time limit in your chair and make it a priority to stand up and give your body a break from sitting. Check out our Get up and Move poster for ideas of stretches you can do in a few minutes.

Make exercise part of your routine

Even smaller amounts of exercise can benefit your health and well-being. Exercise is cumulative, so three 10-minute walks spread throughout the day are as valuable as one 30-minute walk. Plus, you can always break up your day by moving around.

“I always suggest getting up and walking around briefly every so often,” said Mike Fetting, SFM Loss Prevention Specialist. “Bathroom. Water. Coffee. Printer. Neighbor. Don’t do all your ‘errands’ at once.”

Walk and talk

Before you gather around a table for that next meeting, consider combining it with a walk outside or around your workplace. If you’re working from home, maybe you can walk around your house during conference calls.

Be aware of how much time you and your coworkers spend sitting

Start a friendly challenge to see who can get the most steps in. Make it a goal to learn which activities you can perform while standing or on the move.

With a combined approach and a little creativity, you can significantly reduce the amount of time you and your employees spend in a sedentary position and get on a path toward better health.

If you’d like more ideas, see our Get Up and Move page for videos and posters with stretches you can do at your desk, and many more free resources.

Originally published April 2020; updated November 2024.

If you were to ask employees who the leader of their organization is, most of them would say it’s the CEO, executive director, superintendent or owner.

But if you asked them who the safety leader is, would the answer be the same?

Leadership buy-in regarding safety efforts is critical to maintaining a productive workplace. And it also benefits the bottom line.

Creating an organizational culture where everyone is dedicated to building and maintaining a safe work environment requires commitment to safety from the top down.

A LinkedIn article from late 2023 discusses the importance of involving company leaders at every step of the process, including:

• Safety committees
• Audits, inspections
• Training sessions

Still, it’s everyone’s job to set an example and make safety part of the foundation of your organization.

But if safety isn’t already ingrained in your organization’s culture, how do you get started? Here are four steps toward creating a safety program.

1. Set safety goals

To make your safety program effective, you need to set the right goals for your employees.

Focus on safe behaviors rather than risky ones. Choose goals that relate to safety indicators that are both meas­urable and specific to your workplace. The best behaviors to observe are those that will prevent injuries from happening. Review your injury records to look for any trends. This will give you a place to start.

For example, if you’re noticing a large number of back injuries due to lifting, you may want to create a safety goal around safe lifting practices. But rather than telling your employees that the goal is to go one month without injuries, instead focus on safe behaviors. Take 15 minutes every day to observe your employees at work and make a note of every time someone uses the proper lifting technique. Set a goal of observing 100 safe lifts in a week.

Not only can these observations encourage safe behaviors, but they can also help correct unsafe behaviors. If an employee doesn’t use proper lifting techniques, it won’t count against achieving the goal, but you can still observe what the employee is doing wrong and make corrections accordingly.

If you center your safety goals around risky behaviors or injuries, then it could cause employees to refrain from reporting workplace incidents. If you set a goal of going incident-free for a month, then if one of your workers is injured on day 28, they might wait to report the injury. No one wants to be the one to break the trend. But waiting to report an injury could lead to both further injury for the employee and decreased production for the company.

By setting positive goals, you can encourage safety without affecting injury reporting.

2. Use positive recognition

Reinforce safety culture with your employees through positive recognition.

When you’re doing your observation, take the time to recognize employees who follow proper protocols. This can be done verbally, or you can consider some sort of reward program.

Put together a safety program based on encouraging good behaviors that relate to the goals you’ve set. Perform regular checks and offer recognition when applicable, while also making note of any areas that need improvement. Have your supervisors do checks at varied times.

3. Get employees involved in safety

Once you demonstrate your commitment to safety, start getting more of your employees involved. Encourage workers at all levels to participate in the program and start talking to each other about safety.

Not only will this increase the number of eyes looking for ways to improve the safety of your workplace, but it will also increase personal awareness of dangerous behaviors and conditions.

Some options include:

• Have your employees do safety observations among themselves
• Ask them to fill out safety checklists
• Start a safety suggestion box
• Perform random knowledge checks

Try a few different tactics to see what’s most effective in getting your employees to start talking about safety.

You can also incentivize participation by offering rewards to employees who get involved in the program. Small prizes, such as $5 or $10 gift cards, are an easy way to encourage employees. You could also consider providing a free lunch or entering employees who participate into a drawing for a larger prize.

Once you get started, it will become second nature for your employees to communicate about safety.

“You know you have an effective safety culture when employees are willing to talk to each other when they’re doing something unsafe,” said SFM Director of Loss Prevention Lee Wendel.

4. Respond to employee concerns

Your employees need to see that you’re serious about creating a safe work environment. Once you have employees talking about safety, you need to make sure to be communicative and follow up on their observations.

If you have employees reporting safety concerns to you that go unanswered, the program will lose momentum, as well as credibility. Not only will this prevent you from improving safety, it could also cause things to swing in the other direction if your workers lose confidence in you.

It’s also the responsibility of senior leadership to make sure all supervisors and leaders who interact regularly with other employees are on board with a safety program. Supervisors need to allow employees time to engage with the safety program.

You’ll also have to ensure your supervisors are supporting any actions taken to correct a safety concern. If a supervisor contradicts a decision, that could bring a quick halt to your program.

Conclusion

Ultimately, when it comes to leadership in safety, your goal is to have all employees view themselves as safety leaders. But you are the person who can make that happen.

“The most common reason a safety program fails is due to a lack of leadership support,” Wendel said. “A senior leader has the power to make a safety program work or destroy it based on what they say and do.”

If you can show your commitment to safety by creating a dedicated program, listening to your employees and encouraging everyone to get involved, the entire company will follow your example.

Originally published in December 2020; updated in August 2024.

​By 2032, nearly 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is projected to be 55 and older, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

And surveys show that more and more Americans are working past the traditional retirement age of 65.

What does it mean for your company? How can you prevent injuries as your workforce ages?

Why older workers are at higher risk for serious injury

Although older workers are injured less frequently than younger workers, their injuries are typically more severe and take longer to recover from.

They may have comorbidities, such as diabetes or heart disease, that lead to slower recovery and higher medical costs — older workers typically take twice the recuperation time of younger employees, according to the BLS .

There are physiological reasons why aging employees are at higher risk for serious injury.

The first is muscle strength. The aging process leads to distinct muscle mass and strength loss, according to the National Library of Medicine . In fact, muscle strength declines from people older than 40 between16.6% and 40.9%.

The second is hearing and vision loss. As people age, the chances of experiencing hearing and vision loss increase. These changes can make employees less aware of their surroundings, and therefore more susceptible to injury. For example, a construction worker who can’t hear the warning beep of a vehicle backing up.

But the No. 1 risk for older workers is falls, and they can result in more serious injuries than you might expect. For example, workers who’ve slipped and fallen on ice while shoveling have ended up with multiple fractures or even traumatic brain injuries.

Four tips for preventing injuries among older workers

Workplace safety is important for all your workers, no matter their age or experience level. A comprehensive safety program will benefit your entire workforce.

Here are a few practical ideas to better protect your older workers in particular.

1. Enhance injury prevention through a wellness program

Employers can help prevent strains, sprains and falls by encouraging improved flexibility, strength and balance.

Consider starting a flex and stretch program, walking program or covering all or a part of the cost of gym memberships — especially if there’s one nearby with a pool. Swimming is a great form of exercise for injury prevention because it improves strength and flexibility without high impact.

Some companies are constructing workout centers onsite for employee use or holding exercise classes such as yoga, Pilates or Tai Chi.

2. Prevent slip-and-fall injuries

Ensure a safe working environment by maintaining parking lots and sidewalks, keeping walkways dry and clear of clutter and applying slip-resistant floor treatments in appropriate areas. Then, make sure your employees are aware of the risks of slip-and-fall injuries.

Oftentimes, simple steps like wearing appropriate footwear, walking cautiously in wet or slippery conditions and using handrails can prevent a fall.

For employees who spend any time working outside during the winter — like bus drivers, maintenance workers or playground supervisors — encourage wearing traction footwear. Employees who work in environments that are sometimes wet or greasy, such as kitchens or hospitals, should wear slip-resistant footwear. (See a list of slip-and-fall prevention vendors recommended by SFM.)

3. Make sure employees can meet the physical requirements of the job

For new hires, require a pre-employment physical to ensure they are capable of all the tasks the job requires. Make sure the person doing the testing has an up-to-date job description that includes all the essential functions. As part of the examination, have the physician review a medical history questionnaire, which may reveal issues not apparent during the physical exam. The cost of testing will likely pay for itself if you prevent even one back or shoulder injury.

State laws and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act govern how pre-employment physicals can be conducted and used, so it’s important to consult your legal counsel before starting such a program at your company. Any tests used must be job-related and consistent with business necessity. Generally, if applicants have disabilities that interfere with their ability to participate in the testing process, result in them failing the exam, or both, employers must engage in an interactive reasonable accommodation process.

For more information see the Pre-employment physical examinations Legal Advisory.

4. Improve ergonomics

Focusing on ergonomics becomes even more important with older workers. Perform ergonomic evaluations in your employees’ work areas — whether they work at a desk, in a vehicle, on a production floor or in another environment. Ask your employees for their suggestions on how their jobs could be altered to avoid fatigue or soreness.

Eliminate manual lifting wherever possible by changing the layout of the work area or providing lifting equipment. If lifting is required, use proper lifting technique. This is especially important in health care, where injuries from patient handling are common.

For repetitive tasks, practice job rotation. This requires cross-training employees on more than one job, which can be a benefit if someone quits or is absent.

Older workers offer knowledge, experience and expertise that many employers find desirable and will try to retain in the coming years. A little planning and attention can help keep your workforce safe and productive at any age.

Originally published in November 2018; updated in August 2024.