Mistakes to avoid when unloading containers | Qube case study | The Indicator Podcast

Description

Unloading containers might seem straightforward - but small errors can lead to big costs, delays, and safety risks.

In this video, we break down:

✅ Common mistakes businesses make during container unloading

✅ Real-world lessons from the Qube Containers case study

✅ Practical tips to streamline your process and avoid costly pitfalls

Watch now and make your operations safer and more efficient!

Visit www.lefebvre-uk.co.uk to explore our product range, or connect with us on social media:

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Duncan
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this presentation on how you can learn from other businesses' mistakes in the field of health and safety. It's obviously something every business wants to avoid, the potential injuries and obviously the costs associated with potentially an accident and the subsequent prosecution. My name is Duncan Callow, I'm the Managing Director of Lefebvre, and I'm delighted today to be joined by resident health and safety expert, Rachel Wildman, who you will hear from very shortly. Today we're going to take a look at a specific case which dealt with unsafe behaviour and the lessons that businesses like yours can learn from it. So, Rachel, over to you if you could explain to us please what happened.
Rachel
Yes, certainly. So, really we've picked this case law to discuss because it's a very good example of an employee's disregard for safety protocols and sort of making up some rules of thumb and not really paying attention to their safety in the workplace. So, I just move on the slide here. So, this is about Qube Containers Limited. So the task that they had, they were unloading shipping containers and the cars in the shipping containers that were strapped in. So they were having to empty all of the strapping and the waste that was holding the cars in place through the transportation. And they were emptying all the strapping into two small bins. So they were filled with waste packaging, which then were moved to the larger skip behind. You can see the picture there that starts with C-O-L. So the two smaller skips in front were being filled up and then removed to the larger commercial waste skip. What happened was a worker - he was only 21 years old - he was standing actually on the pallet in front of the two skips there and the trailing straps got caught on his foot and tugged him and pulled him to the ground. Now, unfortunately, the forklift truck was moving at the same time and the forklift truck driver ran over the injured party's foot. So, as you can see ,it wasn't a very pleasant incident but one that I'm sure you'll agree could have been easily avoided. The injuries that the injured party sustained was he was hospitalised for nine days, he required skin grafts on his knee and the back of his thigh as well and he also had a broken ankle. Which - he was 21, he will heal quite quickly - but as we know, you know, once you get older some of those breaks do come back to bite you when you're a little bit older and the minute it's a bit cold, you know, you start to feel aches and pains that you wouldn't have had otherwise. And of course it's not just about the injury that the injured party sustained. He would have also potentially had loss of income. It depends what Qube Container's sickness policy was and whether or not he would have got paid for that but also it has impact on family and friends. It might have impacted his lifestyle if he was a skateboarder or a roller skater or something like that. You know, he wouldn't have been able to sort of participate in hobbies for a long time while his ankle was healing correctly. So, the accident doesn't only impact the company, but it can seriously impact the individual and their quality of life as well. So for something that was quite a simple incident, it did have a big impact. The HSE investigated, as they do in serious cases, and what they found was that Qube Containers Limited had failed to provide equipment that was safe and suitable for use for the task but they had also failed to assess the correct system of work for emptying the bins, and the system that they were using was deemed to be unsafe. In addition, generally speaking the traffic routes weren't organised in a safe manner, allowing pedestrians and vehicles to interact. And it was clear from the work practices on site that this was something that happened a lot and wasn't just a one-off incident. The cost of the business?So, Qube Containers Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2.1 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and Section 2.1 is every employer must ensure so reasonably - so far as is reasonably practicable - the health, safety and welfare of all his employees at work. So, this was a serious breach because the employer, Qube Containers, hadn't done that. The punishment? It was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £3,752 pounds in Norwich magistrates court on 12th September this year. Now, that's not just that one-off cost for the business. It's far more impact to the business here. So the £30,000 and the £3,752 are non-insurable. So that has to come out of Qube Container's profits. But there would also have been investigation time.There would have been potentially fees for intervention that the HSE would have charged as well. It would have been time for the management team or the directors of the company to go to court, so they weren't being productive while they were in court, and while they were defending there would have been legal costs that are non-insurable as well. And, of course, sorry to interrupt you, presumably also there's potentially a personal injury claim to follow as well? Absolutely. Because always in a case where there's been found to be guilty of a breach, a personal injury claim will follow suit. It's civil law so it will mean that the solicitor will wait until the result of this particular criminal law case, and because they have already been found guilty there will be compensation to pay now. Again, of course, with a company it will be your employer's liability insurance that pays for that. However, it could well have a big impact upon your future premiums for the following few years, making up the loss that would have been paid out in that compensation. So how could Qube Containers have avoided this and avoided all that expense to their business as well? Well, really, if they'd have employed some low-cost administrative tools they could have avoided that accident altogether. All it needed really was a robust risk assessment and then that would have defined where the hazards were, how severe the risk was, and then they would have been able to write a safe method for waste removal. And that might even be something as simple as rather than allowing the strapping there to overflow the small containers, it might have been that they bundled up and tied it so it fitted in better and didn't overflow those bins. It might have been that the safe method said once the bin had reached a certain level, stop the process, go and remove it and empty those bins into that larger commercial bin behind, as you can see behind the container there. Allowing the waste to completely overflow is introducing a hazard that really could have been very easily avoided there. It might have been suitable supervision. So, if the management team sort of saw somebody standing on a pallet while the forklift truck was moving, he should have been told not to do that. It's an absolute no-no. You know, you should never be riding on forklift trucks while they're moving or the forks or any containers that those forklifts might be transporting as well. So suitable supervision could have very easily avoided that incident as well. And also potentially something as simple as looking at the layout of the workplace and looking at the relocation of the commercial waste container, so that maybe the waste could have been moved straight into that and they could have avoided the sort of the interim smaller waste skips being used. But ultimately, all of those control measures there that could have been implemented would have been a lot less costly than that £30,000 fine.
Duncan
Yeah. I mean, clearly it's a very interesting case, Rachel, and the business in this case is already paying a high price for the errors, for the mistakes it's made. But aren't the circumstances of this case very specific or isn't this really just a one-off?
Rachel
Well, you would like to think so, really, wouldn't you? I hope that indeed it is. But unfortunately, in 2024, being struck by a moving vehicle accounted for 18% of all fatal injuries in the UK workplace. So that's an average of 24 fatalities a year. So, unfortunately, it is far too commonplace. 26% of those fatalities were in agriculture, forestry and fishing. 18% of them were in transportation and storage. And a further 18% of those fatalities were in the construction sector. So fatalities alone, you can see that being struck by moving vehicles sort of really hits every industry sector. It's not just related to one. So it's something that could impact everybody and unfortunately does. Moving away from fatalities every year, there are over two and a half thousand RIDDOR reports involving accidents from transport and moving vehicles in the workplace. So, you know, that's an enormous number in our workplace, really: 2,500 people being seriously injured. And accidents are most often caused by pedestrians being struck by those moving vehicles. In Qube's case, it was more that the pedestrian sort of put himself in harm's way, if you like, through his unsafe practices. But majority of them, it's really where the driver can't see that pedestrian.
Duncan
And are there any other potential ramifications for SMEs from a serious accident?
Rachel
Yes, certainly. So, again, taking the case that we're talking about, Qube Containers were prosecuted and they did pay the financial non-insured penalty there. But also it can have other financial impacts on this business and any other SMEs that have a similar accident. It can be reduced profits because those non-insured costs are taken out of your profit margin. It can be sickness pay if that's what your company policy is and you might be paying full pay while somebody is off work with an injury. You would have the financial liabilities for legal advice and that doesn't come cheap, unfortunately. So, again, that's all completely uninsurable and will be a cost for the company. In some cases, custodial sentences are passed, which means that a director may even have to serve some time in prison or as a suspended sentence. And as we've already discussed, you will likely have a personal injury claim raised against you for negligence. So that's going to cost you time and money to defend that claim as well. Non-tangible impacts. It can be damaged reputation. You know, reputation in this day and age is really important and brand image, etc., etc. So any damage to that and word of mouth getting around, particularly in a local area such as Norwich, where this incident happened. It could be that people say, "Oh, you don't want to go and work there, because it's dangerous". So, again, one of those sort of non-tangible outputs, if you like, is that you might find that you can't attract good talent. So, you know, the good quality workers won't want to come and work for you because you've got a bad name. It can be diminished workforce morale as well So an accident - we talked about impact on family and friends, but also colleagues, you know. They won't have liked witnessing this - they might think "I'm at risk now" and it can really seriously impact morale safety culture and could also lead to higher staff turnover which means that you as a company can lose experience and expertise as well okay
Duncan
Well, you've clearly made a very strong case there. The impacts are significant, so I think what we really need to do to wrap this up is and the £64,000 question is for, from our viewers' perspective, is what can they do to avoid making mistakes like this?
Rachel
Yeah, very good question. So again, what we need to do is learn from other people's mistakes, try not to make them ourselves, but learn from the ones that have already happened. So really, sort of as a generic tips and advice really is to just make sure that you've got safe systems of work in place, make sure that you have risk assessed. A risk assessment isn't just you saying,"Oh, we've got to do a risk assessment": it is a legal requirement. And off the back of that risk assessment, you need to write your safe systems of work. But not only that, you should make sure that your staff know them. It's no good having them all written and filed away somewhere dusty where they don't, you know, they've never been trained to those safe systems of work. It should be that rules of thumb are not allowed. So again, supervision, you know, if the managers know what those safe systems of work are and they see somebody bypassing it, such as standing on a pallet while a forklift truck is moving, or, you know, sort of anything that is seen to be dangerous. So you should stop the process immediately and not allow it to continue to happen. Have a conversation with the individual about, you know, "Have you thought about the outcome of what you're doing?" You might be doing it for the right reasons to try and get a job done quickly. However, your safety is far more important. And I'd rather it was done slowly and safely than done quickly. And there was an accident. Accidents can happen with any type of moving vehicle, not just forklift trucks. So if anybody is watching this who doesn't operate forklift trucks, think about other transport that comes onto your site. It might be members of the public. It might be you have lots of courier deliveries. It could be sort of your standard deliveries with regular drivers coming onto site. But anywhere where there is a moving vehicle, there is the potential for that collision. So it's about making sure that you've done something such as a traffic plan. So make sure that if you do have vehicles moving on your site, you've worked out the safest way of segregating pedestrians from those vehicles as well. And again, some of those control measures there, it could just be good signage, it might be that you're asking people to wear high visibility clothing, or it could even be sort of like simple barriers to demark a walkway to segregate those pedestrians from those moving vehicles as well. The right equipment will always be cheaper than waiting for an accident to happen and paying for the cost of a prosecution. So again, making sure that, you know, rather than using - in Qube Container's case - the two smaller skips, you know. Maybe having a more suitable container there, maybe a wheelie bin so that you could move that so that the skips weren't having to be moved on a pallet. So you could actually push it to the larger container. So again, real consideration to think about what the task is and what you're asking your staff to do is absolutely critical because it might be a really cost-effective control measure that you can put in place that will reduce that risk dramatically. And finally, really it's just train, train, train. It's don't let yourself make up their own way of doing something if you've done your risk assessment in your safe system of work and and you've provided all the right equipment. You really need to make sure that your staff know what that is so that they can follow it at all times and stay safe. If Qube Container had applied some of those small amounts of administration tasks and some of the right equipment, that expensive accident that they had wouldn't have happened and Section 2.1 wouldn't have been breached. And that really is the ultimate aim of health and safety in the workplace.
Duncan
Rachel, that's fantastic advice. I think from my perspective, it's clear that health and safety in the workplace is non-negotiable, but it's also clear that it doesn't have to cost anything. It doesn't have to cost very much, if anything at all, to ensure that your workforce are kept safe. And I think, as you said, if Cube had implemented some very basic administrative measures, then they wouldn't have been on the wrong end of this prosecution and the poor young chap wouldn't have had this nasty injury. So, thank you for your wonderful advice, Rachel. If you like this series and you want to see more about, we want to learn more from mistakes of other businesses in the field of health and safety, do please get in touch. And don't forget to check out our range of - our extensive range of - health and safety products, some of which are now powered by AI, by visiting our website at www.lefebvre-uk.co.uk, or do give our very friendly ladies in custom services a call. But for now, thank you, Rachel, and thank you, everyone, for sharing your time with us. Bye.

Description

Unloading containers might seem straightforward - but small errors can lead to big costs, delays, and safety risks.

In this video, we break down:

✅ Common mistakes businesses make during container unloading

✅ Real-world lessons from the Qube Containers case study

✅ Practical tips to streamline your process and avoid costly pitfalls

Watch now and make your operations safer and more efficient!

Visit www.lefebvre-uk.co.uk to explore our product range, or connect with us on social media:

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Duncan
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this presentation on how you can learn from other businesses' mistakes in the field of health and safety. It's obviously something every business wants to avoid, the potential injuries and obviously the costs associated with potentially an accident and the subsequent prosecution. My name is Duncan Callow, I'm the Managing Director of Lefebvre, and I'm delighted today to be joined by resident health and safety expert, Rachel Wildman, who you will hear from very shortly. Today we're going to take a look at a specific case which dealt with unsafe behaviour and the lessons that businesses like yours can learn from it. So, Rachel, over to you if you could explain to us please what happened.
Rachel
Yes, certainly. So, really we've picked this case law to discuss because it's a very good example of an employee's disregard for safety protocols and sort of making up some rules of thumb and not really paying attention to their safety in the workplace. So, I just move on the slide here. So, this is about Qube Containers Limited. So the task that they had, they were unloading shipping containers and the cars in the shipping containers that were strapped in. So they were having to empty all of the strapping and the waste that was holding the cars in place through the transportation. And they were emptying all the strapping into two small bins. So they were filled with waste packaging, which then were moved to the larger skip behind. You can see the picture there that starts with C-O-L. So the two smaller skips in front were being filled up and then removed to the larger commercial waste skip. What happened was a worker - he was only 21 years old - he was standing actually on the pallet in front of the two skips there and the trailing straps got caught on his foot and tugged him and pulled him to the ground. Now, unfortunately, the forklift truck was moving at the same time and the forklift truck driver ran over the injured party's foot. So, as you can see ,it wasn't a very pleasant incident but one that I'm sure you'll agree could have been easily avoided. The injuries that the injured party sustained was he was hospitalised for nine days, he required skin grafts on his knee and the back of his thigh as well and he also had a broken ankle. Which - he was 21, he will heal quite quickly - but as we know, you know, once you get older some of those breaks do come back to bite you when you're a little bit older and the minute it's a bit cold, you know, you start to feel aches and pains that you wouldn't have had otherwise. And of course it's not just about the injury that the injured party sustained. He would have also potentially had loss of income. It depends what Qube Container's sickness policy was and whether or not he would have got paid for that but also it has impact on family and friends. It might have impacted his lifestyle if he was a skateboarder or a roller skater or something like that. You know, he wouldn't have been able to sort of participate in hobbies for a long time while his ankle was healing correctly. So, the accident doesn't only impact the company, but it can seriously impact the individual and their quality of life as well. So for something that was quite a simple incident, it did have a big impact. The HSE investigated, as they do in serious cases, and what they found was that Qube Containers Limited had failed to provide equipment that was safe and suitable for use for the task but they had also failed to assess the correct system of work for emptying the bins, and the system that they were using was deemed to be unsafe. In addition, generally speaking the traffic routes weren't organised in a safe manner, allowing pedestrians and vehicles to interact. And it was clear from the work practices on site that this was something that happened a lot and wasn't just a one-off incident. The cost of the business?So, Qube Containers Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2.1 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and Section 2.1 is every employer must ensure so reasonably - so far as is reasonably practicable - the health, safety and welfare of all his employees at work. So, this was a serious breach because the employer, Qube Containers, hadn't done that. The punishment? It was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £3,752 pounds in Norwich magistrates court on 12th September this year. Now, that's not just that one-off cost for the business. It's far more impact to the business here. So the £30,000 and the £3,752 are non-insurable. So that has to come out of Qube Container's profits. But there would also have been investigation time.There would have been potentially fees for intervention that the HSE would have charged as well. It would have been time for the management team or the directors of the company to go to court, so they weren't being productive while they were in court, and while they were defending there would have been legal costs that are non-insurable as well. And, of course, sorry to interrupt you, presumably also there's potentially a personal injury claim to follow as well? Absolutely. Because always in a case where there's been found to be guilty of a breach, a personal injury claim will follow suit. It's civil law so it will mean that the solicitor will wait until the result of this particular criminal law case, and because they have already been found guilty there will be compensation to pay now. Again, of course, with a company it will be your employer's liability insurance that pays for that. However, it could well have a big impact upon your future premiums for the following few years, making up the loss that would have been paid out in that compensation. So how could Qube Containers have avoided this and avoided all that expense to their business as well? Well, really, if they'd have employed some low-cost administrative tools they could have avoided that accident altogether. All it needed really was a robust risk assessment and then that would have defined where the hazards were, how severe the risk was, and then they would have been able to write a safe method for waste removal. And that might even be something as simple as rather than allowing the strapping there to overflow the small containers, it might have been that they bundled up and tied it so it fitted in better and didn't overflow those bins. It might have been that the safe method said once the bin had reached a certain level, stop the process, go and remove it and empty those bins into that larger commercial bin behind, as you can see behind the container there. Allowing the waste to completely overflow is introducing a hazard that really could have been very easily avoided there. It might have been suitable supervision. So, if the management team sort of saw somebody standing on a pallet while the forklift truck was moving, he should have been told not to do that. It's an absolute no-no. You know, you should never be riding on forklift trucks while they're moving or the forks or any containers that those forklifts might be transporting as well. So suitable supervision could have very easily avoided that incident as well. And also potentially something as simple as looking at the layout of the workplace and looking at the relocation of the commercial waste container, so that maybe the waste could have been moved straight into that and they could have avoided the sort of the interim smaller waste skips being used. But ultimately, all of those control measures there that could have been implemented would have been a lot less costly than that £30,000 fine.
Duncan
Yeah. I mean, clearly it's a very interesting case, Rachel, and the business in this case is already paying a high price for the errors, for the mistakes it's made. But aren't the circumstances of this case very specific or isn't this really just a one-off?
Rachel
Well, you would like to think so, really, wouldn't you? I hope that indeed it is. But unfortunately, in 2024, being struck by a moving vehicle accounted for 18% of all fatal injuries in the UK workplace. So that's an average of 24 fatalities a year. So, unfortunately, it is far too commonplace. 26% of those fatalities were in agriculture, forestry and fishing. 18% of them were in transportation and storage. And a further 18% of those fatalities were in the construction sector. So fatalities alone, you can see that being struck by moving vehicles sort of really hits every industry sector. It's not just related to one. So it's something that could impact everybody and unfortunately does. Moving away from fatalities every year, there are over two and a half thousand RIDDOR reports involving accidents from transport and moving vehicles in the workplace. So, you know, that's an enormous number in our workplace, really: 2,500 people being seriously injured. And accidents are most often caused by pedestrians being struck by those moving vehicles. In Qube's case, it was more that the pedestrian sort of put himself in harm's way, if you like, through his unsafe practices. But majority of them, it's really where the driver can't see that pedestrian.
Duncan
And are there any other potential ramifications for SMEs from a serious accident?
Rachel
Yes, certainly. So, again, taking the case that we're talking about, Qube Containers were prosecuted and they did pay the financial non-insured penalty there. But also it can have other financial impacts on this business and any other SMEs that have a similar accident. It can be reduced profits because those non-insured costs are taken out of your profit margin. It can be sickness pay if that's what your company policy is and you might be paying full pay while somebody is off work with an injury. You would have the financial liabilities for legal advice and that doesn't come cheap, unfortunately. So, again, that's all completely uninsurable and will be a cost for the company. In some cases, custodial sentences are passed, which means that a director may even have to serve some time in prison or as a suspended sentence. And as we've already discussed, you will likely have a personal injury claim raised against you for negligence. So that's going to cost you time and money to defend that claim as well. Non-tangible impacts. It can be damaged reputation. You know, reputation in this day and age is really important and brand image, etc., etc. So any damage to that and word of mouth getting around, particularly in a local area such as Norwich, where this incident happened. It could be that people say, "Oh, you don't want to go and work there, because it's dangerous". So, again, one of those sort of non-tangible outputs, if you like, is that you might find that you can't attract good talent. So, you know, the good quality workers won't want to come and work for you because you've got a bad name. It can be diminished workforce morale as well So an accident - we talked about impact on family and friends, but also colleagues, you know. They won't have liked witnessing this - they might think "I'm at risk now" and it can really seriously impact morale safety culture and could also lead to higher staff turnover which means that you as a company can lose experience and expertise as well okay
Duncan
Well, you've clearly made a very strong case there. The impacts are significant, so I think what we really need to do to wrap this up is and the £64,000 question is for, from our viewers' perspective, is what can they do to avoid making mistakes like this?
Rachel
Yeah, very good question. So again, what we need to do is learn from other people's mistakes, try not to make them ourselves, but learn from the ones that have already happened. So really, sort of as a generic tips and advice really is to just make sure that you've got safe systems of work in place, make sure that you have risk assessed. A risk assessment isn't just you saying,"Oh, we've got to do a risk assessment": it is a legal requirement. And off the back of that risk assessment, you need to write your safe systems of work. But not only that, you should make sure that your staff know them. It's no good having them all written and filed away somewhere dusty where they don't, you know, they've never been trained to those safe systems of work. It should be that rules of thumb are not allowed. So again, supervision, you know, if the managers know what those safe systems of work are and they see somebody bypassing it, such as standing on a pallet while a forklift truck is moving, or, you know, sort of anything that is seen to be dangerous. So you should stop the process immediately and not allow it to continue to happen. Have a conversation with the individual about, you know, "Have you thought about the outcome of what you're doing?" You might be doing it for the right reasons to try and get a job done quickly. However, your safety is far more important. And I'd rather it was done slowly and safely than done quickly. And there was an accident. Accidents can happen with any type of moving vehicle, not just forklift trucks. So if anybody is watching this who doesn't operate forklift trucks, think about other transport that comes onto your site. It might be members of the public. It might be you have lots of courier deliveries. It could be sort of your standard deliveries with regular drivers coming onto site. But anywhere where there is a moving vehicle, there is the potential for that collision. So it's about making sure that you've done something such as a traffic plan. So make sure that if you do have vehicles moving on your site, you've worked out the safest way of segregating pedestrians from those vehicles as well. And again, some of those control measures there, it could just be good signage, it might be that you're asking people to wear high visibility clothing, or it could even be sort of like simple barriers to demark a walkway to segregate those pedestrians from those moving vehicles as well. The right equipment will always be cheaper than waiting for an accident to happen and paying for the cost of a prosecution. So again, making sure that, you know, rather than using - in Qube Container's case - the two smaller skips, you know. Maybe having a more suitable container there, maybe a wheelie bin so that you could move that so that the skips weren't having to be moved on a pallet. So you could actually push it to the larger container. So again, real consideration to think about what the task is and what you're asking your staff to do is absolutely critical because it might be a really cost-effective control measure that you can put in place that will reduce that risk dramatically. And finally, really it's just train, train, train. It's don't let yourself make up their own way of doing something if you've done your risk assessment in your safe system of work and and you've provided all the right equipment. You really need to make sure that your staff know what that is so that they can follow it at all times and stay safe. If Qube Container had applied some of those small amounts of administration tasks and some of the right equipment, that expensive accident that they had wouldn't have happened and Section 2.1 wouldn't have been breached. And that really is the ultimate aim of health and safety in the workplace.
Duncan
Rachel, that's fantastic advice. I think from my perspective, it's clear that health and safety in the workplace is non-negotiable, but it's also clear that it doesn't have to cost anything. It doesn't have to cost very much, if anything at all, to ensure that your workforce are kept safe. And I think, as you said, if Cube had implemented some very basic administrative measures, then they wouldn't have been on the wrong end of this prosecution and the poor young chap wouldn't have had this nasty injury. So, thank you for your wonderful advice, Rachel. If you like this series and you want to see more about, we want to learn more from mistakes of other businesses in the field of health and safety, do please get in touch. And don't forget to check out our range of - our extensive range of - health and safety products, some of which are now powered by AI, by visiting our website at www.lefebvre-uk.co.uk, or do give our very friendly ladies in custom services a call. But for now, thank you, Rachel, and thank you, everyone, for sharing your time with us. Bye.

Embed