Slips, trips and same-level falls

Slips and trips are the injuries people apologise for. Someone goes down, gets up embarrassed, says they were not looking, and the thing that put them on the floor is still there tomorrow. The surface did not change — what changed was whether the person was carrying something, whether it had rained, whether they were walking a route they take twenty times a day and no longer look at. The useful question today is not who fell, but where would you put money on the next one happening.

Principal hazards

• Contamination on the surface — water, oil, coolant, product, dust, or the film left after a floor is mopped and walked on before it dries
• Transitions — the step from concrete to steel plate, dry to wet, inside to outside. Most slips happen where the surface changes, not in the middle of it
• Changes of level you stop seeing — a single step, a kerb, a threshold, a ramp edge, a cable tray crossing a walkway
• Damaged surfaces — potholes, lifted matting, broken grating, corroded plate, loose boards
• Stairs — worn nosings, missing or loose handrails, inconsistent riser heights, and the last step people misjudge
• Carrying and vision — a load in both arms removes your view of the floor and your ability to catch yourself
• Light and weather — the route that is fine at 10am and dark at 5pm; ice on the one bit of the yard that never sees sun
• Footwear — worn tread, or shoes chosen for a different surface than the one being walked on

Practical controls

Worked down the hierarchy of controls, not up. Every control below carries the source it comes from — the numbers link to Sources.

1. Fix the source, not the symptom. A leak that gets mopped daily is a maintenance job, not a cleaning job. Eliminating the contamination is the only control that works when nobody is mopping⁴¹
2. Keep walking-working surfaces clean, orderly and free of hazards — including spills, leaks, loose boards, protruding nails and corrosion. This is a standing requirement, not a tidy-up before a visit¹
3. Deal with wet processes properly. Where a process makes the floor wet, the answer is drainage, dry standing places or mats — not a sign and a hope¹
4. Mark and light the transitions. Level changes and surface changes are where people go down; make them visible rather than expecting familiarity to cover it¹⁴
5. Treat handrails as equipment, not decoration. Stairs need them, and a loose handrail is a defect to report today, not a cosmetic issue¹
6. If you cannot see the floor over the load, the load is too big. Two trips, a trolley, or a second person — and never carry something that needs both hands up or down stairs⁴
7. Report the near miss. The stumble that did not become a fall is the only free warning anyone gets, and it identifies the exact spot¹

Supervisor discussion points

• Walk the crew's actual route from the door to the work area and ask them to point at where they have stumbled. Do this on the route, not in a room.
• Ask what the floor is like at the end of a wet shift, not what it is like now.
• Find out whether anyone reroutes to avoid a bad bit of ground — an informal detour is a hazard report nobody filed.
• If a handrail, mat or grating is loose anywhere on this site, that is today's action, not today's discussion.

Questions for the crew

Ask these out loud and wait. The silence is where the answers are.

• Where on this site have you slipped or stumbled and not told anyone?
• Which bit of ground here changes when it rains, or when it gets dark?
• Is there anywhere you have to carry something you cannot see over?
• What gets cleaned up every single day? Why is it there every single day?
• Are your boots right for the surface you actually walk on, or for the job title?

Key takeaways

• The surface that puts someone down has usually been walked over safely a hundred times first.
• A spill that recurs is a maintenance problem wearing a cleaning problem's clothes.
• If you cannot see the floor over the load, put some of it down.
• The stumble that did not become a fall is worth reporting — it tells you the exact spot.

Talk record and attendance

Company:

1 · This talk

Topic Slips, trips and same-level falls

Project / site

Location / area

Date

Presenter / supervisor

2 · Site and task specifics

What on THIS site or task does this apply to today? The generic talk is the starting point. This box is the part that makes it about here.

Questions, concerns and comments raised Including anything you could not answer, and who will follow it up.

3 · Attendance

Each person signs for themselves. Continue on a second sheet rather than writing between rows.

#	Employee name (print)	Signature	Date
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What a signature records. A signature records attendance at this talk on this date. It does not prove the attendee understood the material, does not establish competency, does not transfer the employer's responsibility for a safe workplace, and does not by itself satisfy a formal training requirement under any OSHA standard. Where a standard requires training with specific content, frequency or competency verification, a toolbox talk does not replace it.

Slips, trips and same-level falls — ehstec.com/resources/toolbox-talk-slips-trips-falls · Published 23 September 2026. A toolbox talk is common industry practice, not a federal requirement. Keeping walking-working surfaces clean, orderly and free of hazards IS required — this talk is a conversation about that, not evidence of it. A signature records attendance only, not comprehension, competency or compliance.

What this talk does not do

• It does not cover fall protection from height. Falls from elevation are governed by their own standards — 1910.28 in general industry and 1926 subpart M in construction — with duties around competent persons, systems and training that a five-minute talk satisfies none of. That is a separate topic and this talk is not it.
• It is not a floor-surface assessment. Slip resistance, drainage design and surface specification are engineering questions, not discussion points.
• It is generic. Your surfaces, processes and weather are not in it. The site-specific box on the record sheet is where it becomes about here.
• Attendance is not competence. See the record sheet.

Sources

• OSHA — 1910.22 — walking-working surfaces kept clean, orderly and free of hazards
• OSHA — 1910.25 — stairways, including handrail requirements
• OSHA — 1910.28 — duty to have fall protection (cited only to mark what this talk does NOT cover)
• NIOSH — Hierarchy of Controls