This is how to adress risks of falling from heights

The work must be planned, organised and carried out in a way that prevents all risks of falling from heights. As the employer, or as the the party responsible for the coordination of work environment issues at a workplace shared by several businesses, it is your responsibility to ensure this.

Plan and organise the work to eliminate or minimise the risk of falls from heights

Review working methods and safety devices

Preventing risks of falling from heights can involve choosing work methods or safety devices that enable the work to be carried out safely. For example, as an employer, you may need to design devices with a suitable slope and provide them with handrails, guardrails, foot boards or slip protection. Ramps are normally better than single steps.

The work of planning to prevent the risk of falling from heights may also include removing risks on the surface, for example, by clearing up, cleaning, snow removal or sanding. Sometimes the solution may be to use anti-slip materials or for employees to wear appropriate clothing and the right shoes. In such cases, you as an employer need to make things clear to the employees before they start work.

Other measures against the risk of falling from heights are to make employees aware of the risks, for example, by means of

  • improved lighting
  • warning markings
  • barriers
  • warning signs
  • other types of safety devices.

You also need to follow up on whether the work methods or safety devices are safe or need to be changed.

Produce information and instructions at the planning stage

When information and instructions are required, it is advisable to produce these at an early stage, when the jobs are being planned. Then they are in place when the work begins, which gives the employees the conditions to perform the work safely, without the risk of falling.

Choose common fall protection for safer workplaces

As an employer, you may not generally direct employees to use personal fall protection equipment, because workplaces must be designed in such a way that personal fall protection equipment is not needed. This means that you should prioritise common protective measures over individual ones. But sometimes, of course, you may have to find a balanced solution if you judge that it is unreasonable to use, for example, fixed fall protection.

Performing work with common fall protection measures is both safer and usually more effective, as it is complicated for employees to use personal fall protection equipment. This is because the use of personal equipment requires, as a minimum, that the employee has

  • thorough knowledge of how the equipment should be used safely
  • proven equipment that is suitable for both the employee and the purpose
  • access to safe anchor points to attach the fall protection line to, which is often problematic.

Measures against the risk of falling from heights

Here are examples of measures that the employer can take to reduce the risk of falling from heights in the workplace.

  • Safe surfaces for employees to walk and stand on is one of the most important prerequisites for preventing the risk of falling from heights. As an employer, you therefore need to ensure that the surfaces are as safe as possible, in that they are firm, stable, level and drained. You must also ensure that the surfaces are, as far as possible, flat, and free of spills, waste and unnecessary objects.

    You must also implement measures to prevent slipping hazards caused by snow, ice or spilled oil, for example.

    If work must be carried out on a moving surface, protective measures may include

    • securing an unbraked vehicle against rolling
    • blocking the surface to prevent movement
    • securing a ladder
    • locking controls to a conveyor belt or the like so that it cannot move unintentionally or unexpectedly.

  • You need to plan protective covers over holes and openings so that they maintain good quality. It is not sufficient to take just any building board or anything else readily available to temporarily make a quick covering. Many fall accidents have been caused by protective coverings slipping away or breaking, due to the building board or the material used as a protective covering not being strong enough or sufficiently anchored.

    If it is not possible to immediately cover an opening or a hole, it must be made clear to employees how to temporarily maintain safety while a safe cover is arranged. Appropriate ways of securing covering material include

    • nailing down
    • bolting
    • clamping to the surface.

    There can also be a frame around a hatch or guide strips that fit the opening under the covering material.

    The protective covering must be marked according to Swedish standards

    You must mark the protective covering so that it cannot be misunderstood. The appropriate way to do this is to follow the Swedish standard for warning markings. This makes it clear to anyone who may be involved.

    You can read more about this in the Swedish Work Environment Authority's provisions and general guidelines (AFS 2023:12) on the design of workplaces, chapter 7 and appendix 5.

    In joint workplaces where different activities may expose each other to the risk of falling from heights, it is particularly important that the coordinator ensures that everyone knows how different types of protective coverings must be done so that they do not expose each other to fall risks.

    Read more about coordination responsibility further down on this page.

  • As an employer, you must ensure that fall protection devices and their fastenings are properly calculated and designed. When calculating and designing, you need to take into account the impact that is reasonable to expect, if one or more persons fall while performing work where there are risks of falling.

    The person doing the design also needs to take into account that a safety device can be damaged by mechanical impact, heat, cold, acids or other chemicals or ultraviolet radiation.

    If you cannot arrange a suitable fall protection device, you may need to implement an alternative safety measure, such as using safety nets or deploying a safety guard. You can also put up warning signs or markings to complement these measures.

    The measure could also be a different work method or performing the work using a fixed or mobile work platform, if it cannot be done from ground level or an equivalent safe place.

  • When a fall risk means that employees could drown, suitable rescue devices are required, such as a

    • ladder with hooks
    • life-saving hook
    • lifebuoy with line
    • life-saving raft or boat

    A lifeboat is especially important when the water has a current. The measures may also include personal protective equipment in the form of a suitable life jacket.

  • If a particular risk of falling arises, the employer must change or stop the work until the risks have been remedied.

    Particular risks of falling can arise when employees need to work at heights despite problematic weather, such as

    • high winds
    • rain, especially freezing rain
    • snowfall

    Even moderate wind strength can mean a risk of falling if employees handle objects that easily catch the wind, such as boards or tarpaulins.

The employer is responsible for managing the risk of falling from heights

As an employer, you are responsible for preventing risks of falling from heights, in exactly the same way as you are responsible for preventing all other work environment risks. You must be familiar with the Work Environment Act and other work environment regulations.

You are also responsible for your own employees' work environment  if they perform work at someone else's workplace. You must therefore include the risk of falling from heights in all environments where your employees work when you risk assess the work environment and ensure that measures are taken.

Coordinating responsibility for the work environment in joint workplaces

It is common for two or more employers or sole proprietors to be active at the same workplace at the same time. Since the risks can be greater when several businesses work in the same workplace, employers must cooperate to arrange safe working conditions and ensure that the employees do not expose each other to risks of ill health or accidents.

There must be someone who is responsible for coordinating joint work environment issues. When a fixed place of business is a shared workplace for several activities, it is the person who controls the place of work who has coordination responsibility for work environment management.

In a workshop, for example, it is the person who runs the workshop who must ensure that others who work there, such as staff from a cleaning company or a haulage company, are not exposed to risks.

The coordinator is responsible for safety devices

If you as an employee perform work at another employer's workplace, it is the person in charge of coordination who must ensure that there are general safety devices and that they are maintained and safe. You need to read the information about the general safety rules that must exist and be issued by the person in charge of coordination. If you discover risks of falling from heights in the workplace, you need to contact your employer or the person who has the role of coordinator.

When it comes to fall safety devices, it is important to remember not to remove a handrail or use an inadequate cover as protection, as this could create a fall risk for someone else in the workplace. Remember that there may be workers other than your own colleagues in the common workplace: act so that the work environment is safe for everyone.

Examples of risks of falling from heights

Even if the jobs that your employees normally perform do not entail the risk of falling from heights, you as an employer need to ensure that the risks are investigated, assessed and remedied if work is to be performed in a workplace where there are fall risks. This may mean, for example, that you need to take fall protection measures. If you as an employer do not have control over the workplace where your employees are to perform tasks, it may instead be the person in charge of coordination who needs to take the measures or ensure that they are taken.

Here are some examples that describe what you may need to consider for employees who perform work at other people's workplaces where the risk arises of falling from heights.

A situation where an employee performs work at someone else's workplace could for example be when an inspection engineer carries out checks and inspections on lifting devices on industrial premises. The inspection may have to take place high on an overhead crane, and this entails a risk of falling. It may be a fall risk to which the industrial employer's own personnel are not exposed, and which has thus not been noticed at that workplace. In such a case, the inspection engineer must not carry out the inspection work without notifying their employer or coordinator, as the fall risks must first be addressed.

Another example could be employees who work with IT systems in an office environment on a daily basis, but who sometimes have tasks out in the field. Risks of falling can arise if, for example, the employee needs to climb up to a vehicle cab where the IT equipment to be debugged is located. Then the IT employer may need to supplement the measures against the fall risks out in the field with fall protection measures.

Last updated 2025-02-07