4 Ways to Improve Job Site Safety for Wind Farm Technicians
Protect the teams working to provide clean energy
It’s no secret that the clean energy industry is booming, with continuous advances in available technologies and a global desire to find innovative solutions for climate change, the future of clean energy looks bright. As with so many industries, there are inevitable growing pains, but one of the most important is the safety of the technicians out in the field. With wind farm technicians reported as one of the fastest growing fields, having a projected growth rate of 44% over the next ten years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of the most daunting challenges is ensuring the safety of all wind turbine service technicians.
Thankfully, safety precautions continue to advance as quickly as the industry itself. By keeping safety top of mind for your technicians, you can do your part to keep your business running smoothly and prioritize the well-being of your employees. Here are the top four ways you can promote a safety-focused workforce within your wind energy business.
The Importance of Proper Training
Training is your first line of defense against unsafe working conditions and thankfully is becoming more accessible and easier to implement across the board. When it comes to wind turbine technicians, there are a variety of risk factors involved in their day-to-day work, and proper training can make a huge impact in minimizing accidents and injuries. From the tools wind techs use daily to the risks of high-rise working locations, training is key in the prevention of workplace accidents.
“Perhaps not surprisingly, hand injuries from misuse of tools are the number one cause of injury for wind techs.”
Not only can proper training help prevent injuries to your technicians, but it can also help promote a safer working environment. By implementing thorough training before a new technician joins your team, refresher training sessions for new or unique job sites, and supplemental training for any new equipment at your sites, your teams will be ready for any situations they encounter. Of course, training comes at the expense of one of your most valued resources: your technicians’ time. Consider implementing digital training courses or paperwork for your wind tech teams to keep your training as efficient as possible.
Digital training methods can range from using an online fillable form to video-based training sessions, and even virtual reality courses that can walk your technicians through live examples of potential hazards. Using digital training minimizes your environmental impact, especially for online forms, and can also mean real-time tracking of who has or hasn’t completed their training.
Staying Ahead of Safety Inspections
Don’t wait for a quarterly audit to make safety inspections a part of your team’s routine. Safety practices are critical to every day at every job site, so make sure your teams are incorporating safety check-ins, safety checklists, and equipment inspections daily. Just as any construction team will have its own construction site safety checklist, your wind turbine technicians should have their go-to safety inspection assets available at all times.
With the implementation of digital forms, this not only becomes easier to access on all devices within your team but also allows for real-time review of the safety documentation. In the best digital form solutions you’ll also be able to set up conditional logic and send out email alert notifications if safety procedures have been missed or if machinery and equipment didn’t pass an inspection. These helpful alerts can keep everyone safer, provide accurate documentation for future safety audits, and even help prevent damage to your wind turbine equipment.
Gearing Up Properly
Personal Protective Equipment, known as PPE, is one of the most basic, and important, ways to keep your wind tech workers safe on job sites. With working conditions including substantial heights, high levels of electricity, heavy machinery, and other risk factors, ensuring the physical safety of your team is the simplest way to prevent injuries. While the available gear ranges from clips and safety harnesses to hard hats and specialty gloves, to insulated boots and safety glasses, and more, make sure that your team is well trained on how to wear and use this gear. Proper training can only go so far, however, if the gear doesn’t fit. Make the time for your wind technicians to be fitted for their PPE, it could easily save their life.
“Fall protection PPE is the largest and is also the fastest-growing product segment...and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.1% from 2020 to 2025.”
PPE not only has a proven track record of minimizing injuries and risks, but it’s also mandated by a variety of laws and industry regulations. This means it’s important for your team and for your business. If you’ve already incorporated digital forms into your business operations, tracking PPE use and daily checks is a great way to ensure the safety of your team and provide details for any regulating entities. Using a simple eSignature on a PPE daily checklist can keep your team safer by requiring them to review the gear they’re wearing and using daily.
Keep Your Communication Clear
One of the most often overlooked aspects of safety for wind turbine technicians is facilitating clear communication throughout your job site, as well as between your job site and your main business operations location. Safety isn’t just the responsibility of the technicians in the field, or the job site supervisors, it should be a focus of everyone at your company. Hold everyone accountable for being clear about timelines, job site risks, training, and coordination around staffing.
On your job sites, make sure that your team has everything they need to communicate with each other properly. While it’s important to have emergency protocols in place, even something as simple as hand signals to notify shift changes or breaks can help keep everyone on the same page as to where people are. Encourage routine practices for your wind tech workers, like a quick safety chat at the start of each shift, to keep everyone informed and cover unique risks presented by each job site. On many wind turbine sites, noise from equipment or the wind turbines themselves can cause disruption in normal communication methods, so work with your team to find creative hand, flag, or other signals that can make passing messages easier for your team.
Wind turbine technician teams are doing the work to make clean energy accessible to everyone, but they need the support of proper safety practices and equipment to make it happen. Make sure that your team prioritizes their own safety, the safety of their colleagues, and the condition of their machinery. And while changes in working procedures are difficult to implement, it’s important to always stay at the forefront of new safety technologies and practices.
About GoFormz
GoFormz is a digital forms solution that helps bring your data into a single, actionable place. We believe that everyone should be able to fill out their forms online and deliver products and services that redefine how people and businesses collect and process information. Support your wind tech workers with easy-to-complete digital forms, on any device, with or without an internet connection. With our no-code Template Editor, it’s quick and easy to build your digital forms and start capturing secure, complete, and accurate data without the paperwork.
