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Posts Tagged ‘signs’

Community demands, are for companies to have safe work sites. Injuries, poor health and in the extreme cases, death impose a huge impost on the community

Wolrdwide it has been reckoned that the costs of poor safety at work amounts to an estimated 1.25 thousand million US dollars each year. And global, deaths traced to work places numbers some two million people annually.

It’s known that within the US, how a dollar put into safety at work returns three as a the benefits are accrued.

With improving workplace safety, there is a standard methodology of surveying hazards, reducing identified hot spot risks and then taking behavioral measures for the remaining risks . Those behavioral changes need to be implemented in the organization and continually reinforced when safety signs mark the safety hot spots. Positioned in the safety hot spots around the workplace, hazard signs are the perpetual reminder of your safety culture – they work well to endorse the other actions

Given the huge diversity of business, warning signs have been created to cover thousand’s of different situations and have consequently been organized into functional groups . In order of ascending risk to human life, the sign groups are Notice, Stop, Caution, and Danger.

It’s the intent here to look at just the two most potentially beneficial signs for identifying accident hot spots; Caution and Danger signs. 

A caution sign’s function is to inform of conditions not life threatening, but which, could be a risk to human health and/or the environment. Following standard criteria, caution signs are made with a yellow background and black as these are commonly accepted colors for caution – note the yellow for caution in traffic lights.

As a way of catching people’s attention, the caution sign has strong impact .

Within many workplaces there are safety hot spots where there is a serious risk to human life and/or the environment; this is advised with a danger sign . Wherever there is use of chemicals, electricity and heavy machinery you will see danger signs a plenty.

Safety signs do reduce workplace incidents in conjunction with other prudential measures – they are a good investment. 

Workplace safety signs are not just wall decorations. These signs are there in response to a perceived risk and so workers honour what the signs message is communicating. Safety signs describe and tell of inherent risks. They should be placed at an appropriate location within the workplace so that they are easily viewed and understood by all concerned.

Types of Safety Signage

Warning signs conform to an internationally agreed upon means of communication . With the multilingual staff of many workplaces today, pictograms are the easiest interpreted section of the signs.

There are many kinds of signs: A notice sign is an easy going call “Please follow this request”. A stop sign is used for actions that are not permitted and mean  “Do not and you stop the defined action”.  A caution sign is more serious-minded and is used to say, “Take Caution”, there is a risk to health and welfare and in this area there is a hazard. Further up the scale is the Danger sign where neglecting this message can have grave consequence. You should stop and act only when having followed the required action. Finally, the most serious of all are the Obey signs where compliance is essential and, the action is mandatory.

Often in a workplace you will discover a selection of signs being used together to get across the collective hazard. All workplace safety signs should be put where they will be highly visible.

Safety signs help in encouraging safety and show an organizations commitment to safety.

Business Safety made easy

A few industry sectors have signage specific to their industry and their sector specific hazards.

For example, construction safety signs are meant to enforce the message of safety to those working on the site and to warn others off the on site dangers.  This is just one example of sector specific signage; it likewise is applicable to mining, nuclear, laboratory and many other sectors.

Signage is available for fire, first aid and the handling and storage of designated chemicals. These signs save lives and are commonly used in all businesses. Often these signage requirements are mandated by legislation and it is imperative for the site owners and operators to be aware of all legal requirements as applies to the site and ensure compliance.

Workplace safety signage are freely available and can be customized to the site specifics.

Safer workplaces contributes to improvements in workplace welfare and higher team moral, all of which to leads to better business performance. It builds a culture of safety at work.