Business owners are required to provide a safe working environment for their employees. If you own a business and are looking for guidance, then here’s how you can keep your workplace safe:
Wet Surfaces
No matter how hard you try, you can’t keep every surface dry, all the time. Particularly in places like the bathroom or kitchen area of your office. Sometimes spills will happen, and the floor can be left wet. Or, you might have cleaners around, mopping the floors, and leaving them slippery. The problem with wet surfaces is that they’re the number one reason people get injured at work. If possible, get cleaners to come in when everyone’s left work, so you minimize the risk of slipping and falling. Also, if the floor is wet, you must have clear signs. If there’s no wet floor signs and someone falls on the wet floor, you’re in trouble. Your employee can make a personal injury claim, and you’ll have to pay them lots of money in compensation. Try to keep surfaces dry, if you can’t, you have to put clear warning signs down.
Electrical Equipment
Every office will have a range of electrical equipment that will be in use all day. A whole room full of people will be using computers or laptops to do their work. This means there will be lots of cables and loads of things plugged into wall sockets. When you have this much electrical equipment, there’s always the risk of something going wrong. A fuse could blow and spark a fire. Or, someone could plug something in and get an electric shock. There’s any number of safety hazards when it comes to electricity. My advice is to ensure that you don’t have loads of things plugged into the same wall unit. Try and space things out and keep wires as neat as possible. And, ensure that plug sockets are turned off when unplugging and plugging things. You must take good care when using electrical equipment because it can be very unsafe when used incorrectly.
Desk Chairs
You may not think it, but desk chairs have the potential to be very unsafe. Business owners are constantly looking for ways to save money. When it comes to the office, they’ll often save money on desk chairs. Instead of getting quality, ergonomic, chairs, they go for a cheaper option. They buy the cheapest on the market, just to save some cash. This may seem like a genius idea, but it can be a big issue. Cheap chairs can break easily and cause harm to your employees. If someone rests the back into a chair, and it breaks, they could fall backwards and hit their head on the floor. Obviously, you don’t want your employees to get injured at work, or you’ll be in heaps of legal trouble. Ensure that you buy chairs that will last a long time and won’t break easily.
Bear these things in mind if you want to keep your workplace safe. Safety in the office is a very important thing and shouldn’t be undermined.