As a business owner, it’s ultimately your responsibility to provide hardworking employees with a safe workplace environment they can come to every day. A huge part of that is tackling fire safety and guaranteeing your employees’ wellbeing in the eventuality that a fire does break out. Hopefully that will never happen, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared – which is why we’ve put together some ideas for keeping your workplace safe in 2017. Give them a try and give your employees the peace of mind they deserve.
Fire Prevention
First and foremost, it’s important to make sure employees understand ways in which fires can be started within your particular workplace. It may seem like common sense – especially when you work in an environment where fire hazards are a part of everyday life – but it’s much better to be sure that everybody knows than to leave it to fate. Although this can be done internally, for best results a thorough and professional risk assessment can cover every possibility – including the ones you may not have considered!
Putting a Plan in Place
If a fire should break out (again, hopefully not!) your employees will need to know what to do next. Arming them with this knowledge will make all the difference between everybody walking away from the situation safely and disaster.
Make this a much smoother affair by including it in new employees’ inductions and by walking the team through the plan individually and as a group. Having at least one individual be responsible for seeing the plan through can also guarantee that everybody gets out safely even if they’re panicking.
As part of your plan, consider including fire awareness training for all employees – the likes of which includes how to use a fire extinguisher effectively. It could make all the difference.
Getting the Right Equipment
We’ve talked about your employees and their roles to play in fire safety, but that’s only one part of the whole; you’ll still need adequate fire equipment for your office. Fitting out the workplace with fire alarms, the correct extinguishers (yes, there’s more than one type!) and – where appropriate – sprinklers will help to minimise damage and help to make your team feel adequately protected on a day-to-day basis.
Regularly Test Equipment
Of course, investing in all the equipment available is only useful if you undertake regularly scheduled tests to be certain that everything is in working order. Yes, the noise of an alarm being tested will most definitely wake your team up in the morning, but at least you’ll know it’s working!
Make 2017 the safest year yet. We’ve teamed up with D&S Fire to provide our clients with fire safety training, equipment and so much more to keep their premises and people safe. For more information on how they can help you to get fire safety under control, get in touch and say hello!