How Safe Is Your Office?

Every single person who sets up a business has to deal with a lot of paperwork. This paperwork covers rent costs for office space, insurance costs for your office and the paperwork that you compile for your employees. Paperwork is tedious, but without it, you may not be compliant with health and safety in your office. Entrepreneurs who are writing business plans and planning for five and ten years into the future are acutely aware of the need to cover their backs with regard to health and safety.

The rules around health and safety for businesses are pretty strict. You have to be able to keep your employees as safe as possible while they work, while at the same time keeping your office safe from hazards – including flooding and fires. It doesn’t matter whether you work in construction or administration; the health and safety of the people who work for you are a top priority. It’s why there is always a week or two of rigorous training when people start in a new job, and with most accidents happening in an office setting, so taking care of the general safety in the office is really important. Here are five ways you can ensure that your people stay safe daily.

Floors

Most office buildings are furnished with laminate – read ‘slippery’ – floor materials. Installing carpeting and skid-resistant surfaces can drastically reduce the risks of your staff landing on their behinds when they’re innocently heading to their desks. You could also use hall runners and rugs as much as possible to prevent slipping.

Kitchens

Every office has a kitchen area, and if you have a large enough one to use as a canteen, you need to think about contacting Analogue Electrics PAT Testing to ensure that the appliances that your staff use are in shape and compliant with health and safety. This should be done yearly, and it’s a good way to ensure that you don’t spend out on new appliances!

Cabling

People in an office equal computers, photocopiers and printing equipment that come with a lot of cables. You can combat this issue by going one better than using simple cable tidies. By having your staff work on laptops or tablets instead of desktop computers, you can almost eliminate the need for wiring throughout the office and under the desks.

Adjustability

If you want an environment that is safe for all, you need to introduce adjustability. This goes for chair heights, desk monitor angles, work surfaces and monitor stands. You need to be able to adjust things to suit all employees.

Equipment

No matter the equipment, you need to ensure that every person in your office is well trained. Those in the manufacturing department need to be trained on all equipment and those in the main office need to learn the systems. This then makes for a far safer environment.

Office safety matters and not only because your bottom line and insurance rates depend on it. People matter and you should aim to take care of them.