The workplace has the potential to be a dangerous place. Sadly, in every county, people are injured or killed while doing their jobs.
Sometimes this is due to the fact their boss really does not care about the health of their workers. Even in countries where there are safety regulations accidents can, and still do happen.
As a business owner, one of your key responsibilities is keeping your workers safe. The more attention you pay to the issue the safer your workforce will be. As you will see when you read this article, good signage can help you to do so.
Hazard warning signage
The most obvious example of signage that helps to prevent accidents is hazard-warning signs. In many countries, these types of signs have to be purchased and used by law.
It is important to buy the right type for the job. In many countries, the size, graphics, colours and fonts are mandated by law. If you want to avoid prosecution, you need to buy signs that conform to these standards.
In some cases, how and where they should be mounted is also covered by the legislation. Therefore, in order to comply fully with the law you will need to follow these rules too.
You can use local health and safety legislation to identify hazards in your workplace and put up the necessary signage. However, it is also worth listening to what your workforce has to say. It is wise to consider putting up additional signs based on their concerns.
Should an accident happen on your premises, consider whether putting up a hazard warning could have helped to prevent it from happening. Doing this will enable you to identify danger spots on your premises. Once you have identified a potential hazard, you need to take effective steps to stop accidents from occurring in the future, including putting up additional warning signs when necessary.
Informational signage
In some situations, there is no legal requirement for you to put up signs, but it may still be wise to do so. For example, if you have a roadway running around the outside of your premises putting up the appropriate street signs will greatly reduce the chances of misunderstandings, and reduce the potential for accidents to occur.
Educational posters
A big part of maintaining workplace safety is education. Making sure that everyone is aware of the potential hazards, and knows how to avoid them is vitally important. Everyone needs to understand what their responsibilities are, and know how to keep themselves and their colleagues safe.
Running regular health and safety training sessions is a good idea, but it is not all you should be doing. You also need to remind people of safety messages, and do so on a regular basis. Studies show that placing educational posters in communal areas such as cloakrooms and canteens is a good way to do this.
There are plenty of workplace safety posters available. You can find out more about using them, and how to order what you need via the OSHA website.