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Pickers on foot under the racking, anyone free on the truck. Then HSE, an auditor or your insurer asks who is trained, and you need the answer on the day. PHW assesses your people on your own site and machines.
There is no film made for warehouses yet. This one was made for goods in and goods out: the same forklifts, the same lorries at the door, the same law.
Sound on. Captions are built in. The film has its own page, with the full text: goods in and goods out film.
Up to four of your people assessed for competence in one day, on your own site and machines, with minimum downtime. Plus a written safe-system pack for each topic.
A small warehouse or distribution unit with forklifts.
This is for the manager of a warehouse or distribution unit that runs counterbalance forklifts and reach trucks, with racking, pickers on foot and lorries or vans loading at the door. If you take on agency drivers or new starters and put them on a truck, this page is about your site.
What goes wrong on a warehouse floor.
Counterbalance forklifts and reach trucks work in aisles beside pickers on foot. The control is separate routes, a marked layout and operators who have been assessed.
Loads stored above head height can fall a real distance if they are dropped or knocked. Picking from height needs the right access equipment, not an improvised step.
Cases, totes and mixed loads are moved by hand all shift. That needs a handling assessment, not a reminder to lift carefully.
Where HGVs and vans load and unload, the risk runs from the yard through the loading bay and onto the warehouse floor.
The regulations behind it, named.
Regulation 9 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) requires every employer to make sure people who use work equipment have adequate training, and the same for any of their employees who supervise or manage that use. The HSE's Approved Code of Practice L117, Rider-operated lift trucks: operator training and safe use, sets out the training model for forklift and reach truck operators.
Regulation 17 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 requires a workplace to be organised so that pedestrians and vehicles can circulate safely.
The Work at Height Regulations 2005 apply to picking and access at height from racking. Regulation 6 requires work at height to be avoided where it is reasonably practicable to do the work another way, and fall prevention measures where it is not.
Regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 requires an employer to avoid hazardous manual handling where reasonably practicable, to assess what cannot be avoided and to reduce the risk of injury as far as is reasonably practicable.
The employer decides who may operate each truck and records it. PHW's certificates, records and packs are the evidence the employer holds behind that decision.
The machines, packs and systems that fit a warehouse.
Your forklift drivers assessed on your own truck, diesel, gas or electric.
View →Your layout, traffic routes and vehicle movements, written down.
View →A written procedure for lifting and carrying cases, totes and mixed loads.
View →A written procedure for picking and access at height from racking.
View →Who has had what and when, skills gaps and refresher reminders.
View →Traffic plan, loading bay and reversing procedure, and forklift rules with written authorisation for each operator.
View →The evidence trail a customer's auditor, HSE or an insurer can check.
How verification works → · Take the one-minute warehousing check →
Tell us the machines, the packs and how many people, and we will come back with a quote and dates.
Get a quoteHSE prosecutions in this line of work.
£500,000 + £7,040 costs · 2023-11-08
A forklift struck a kerbstone and overturned, trapping and killing a driver who was not wearing a seatbelt.
Read the case →£230,000 + £111,000 costs · 2026-09-14
An improperly planned and supervised forklift unloading operation dropped a 1.2-tonne crate onto a delivery worker from another company, causing life-changing injuries.
Read the case →£425,000 + £119,258 costs · 2026-07-17
A warehouse supervisor fell from a mobile loading ramp with no handrails fitted, later dying in hospital.
Read the case →