Fall Protection/Walking-Working Surfaces
Overview
It is the responsibility of the RIT Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Department to help ensure the safety of employees working from heights of four feet or greater. RIT EH&S will review these tasks with the affected department(s) and determine what fall protection equipment is needed. Fall hazards are controlled through the use of several systems: guardrails, personal fall arrest/positioning devices, designated warning lines, or controlled access zones.
Contractors working at the RIT campus must follow their company's fall protection plan and training requirements. RIT will inform contractors of the specific workplace fall hazards that affect their tasks/operations.
Applicable Regulation:
Training Requirements
Employers must train workers in recognizing fall hazards and how to minimize their exposure to them. All RIT employees affected by this regulation must take the generic RIT /Fall Protection/Walking-Working Surfaces training (link provided on the bottom of this webpage) which includes safe working distances and practices for leading roof edge(s).
Employees who use personal fall arrest systems such as body harnesses, lanyards, and hoists/lifts must take equipment specific training. Personal fall arrest system training needs to cover the proper use, care, maintenance, storage and limitations of these systems. Departments should work with the distributor/vendor of the equipment to schedule equipment specific equipment training. For hoists and lifts, workers are to be trained on their safe use, operation, and maintenance. Equipment specific training must be done prior to workers being required to work in areas where fall hazards exist.
Retraining is required when there are: inadequacies in employee’s knowledge/understanding and when there are changes in fall protection usage or equipment.
Contact the RIT Environmental Health and Safety Department with any questions at (585) 475-7092.