Category: Health & Safety

Fire alarms are necessary in order to prevent loss of life and property in the event of a fire. Fire safety is therefore something that should be taken very seriously in the workplace. Owning a business is a huge responsibility and once you have taken on staff, your business becomes liable for the safety of those people. Accidental fires claim lives but this can be prevented, providing the correct installation of business fire alarm systems.

Installing alarms and detectors could save lives and also protect your business as a whole. Choose either to suit your working environment:

• Manual System – call points on the wall for when someone sees a fire. They can activate it and set off the alarms. This is adequate for a specific working environment where people are always present.
• Automatic Fire Detection – Fire would be automatically picked up by a detector and automatically set the fire alarm off. This is ideal for a work environment where people are not always present.

Proper installation of fire alarm systems is vital as this will be the indicator for people to call for help. A competent person should be assigned to conduct inspections and check on a weekly basis to ensure that they are working. Depending on the size of a business, full-service checks should be carried out once up to four times a year. This depends on the complexity of the system installed.

Ergonomics is hugely important in the workplace, but what is it? And how can it change the way you work? From adjustable chairs to specialist tools, here’s how ergonomics can make your job easier.

How Can Ergonomics Help My Workplace?

Before anything else, you’ve got to understand what ergonomics is. Ergonomics is all about designing the tools and furniture around us to make things as easy, efficient, safe and healthy as possible.

It’s about chairs that allow you to sit properly, desks at the right height, and machinery that’s easy to operate safely. As you can imagine, that means ergonomics has quite a big role to play in the workplace.

When it comes to improving ergonomics in the workplace, there’s some clear benefits to everyone involved. You can expect fewer injuries, fewer employees experiencing pain, increased productivity and increased morale.

People like it when their safety and preferences are taken into account, because you can’t really expect someone who’s six foot five and someone who’s five foot to be able to use the exact same chair and desk set up, especially not for long hours of the workday.

Many companies hire a specialist ergonomic consultant to thoroughly assess their workspace, observe how the team works and then suggest and implement practical solutions to improve performance.

Why is Ergonomics Important in Your Workplace?

Put simply, it’s important because businesses run on people, and if you want your employees to work like reliable cogs in the machine, you need to treat them right, and not put them under undue stress. Only through doing this can you maximise efficiency, and that’s talking from a managerial perspective.

From the employees perspective, just having your physical well-being taken into account properly can be a big morale booster, and allow you to avoid all kinds of unpleasant chronic issues that could result in claims against your employer, time off work, or simply inefficiency. (more…)

When it comes to the workplace, taking chances with health and safety simply isn’t an option. Rather than waiting for disaster to strike before calling out an electrician, it’s vital to instead take a proactive approach.

Having an electrical safety plan in place at work is of critical importance, both for documenting the company’s approach to electrical safety and for looking after the best interests of the workforce. Without a safety plan, you leave yourself wide open to any number of negative scenarios.

Many electricians offer an electrical maintenance plan, these plans often cover a variety of services such as PAT testing and the installation of fire safety equipment, security systems and heating & ventilation.

Portable Electrical Equipment

Portable electrical equipment refers to any electrical item that can be moved around the workplace. Examples include all IT equipment, Hoovers, kettles, fans and so on. It is a requirement that all such equipment be kept in a safe working order at all times – the national standard for doing so being through PAT testing.

Short for ‘portable appliance testing’, the term refers to a process whereby professionals assess the safety and working order of electrical devices, before declaring them safe or unsafe for use. It is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that these tests are carried out regularly enough to ensure that all appliances are always kept in a safe working condition.

While it’s the legal duty of the employer to manage electrical safety, the law does not specifically state that PAT testing must be carried out annually. It all depends on the type of appliance, its age, how often it is used and so on. This again is something that must be determined by the employer and outlined in the electrical safety plan, under the advisement of an expert. (more…)