Signs play an important role in keeping us safe at the workplace. It informs workers about the hazards and how they can avoid dangerous situations. Here are three ways in which you can improve the safety of your workplace with hazard warning signs.
Embrace the language of safety
Safety and warning signs are considered effective tools for easy communication with people present at the workplace. These signs act as a savior for all those workers who have no clarity of hazards in their working environment. As the literacy rate varies from worker to worker, and because not everyone speaks the same language, having a common tool for understanding is important. With warning signs all the necessary knowledge is communicated in the easiest way possible to everyone around.
The main purpose of hazard warning signs is to inform the people that they need to act safely. The signs are also responsible for providing the right information, when and where needed. The standards and regulations of signage become a ‘how to’ guide for workers. There are signs including specific color combinations, size of the text and coding for the ease of understanding. For example, the standard yellow color warning signage represents minor or moderate hazards, orange represents serious hazards and red represents most severe hazards present in the area.
Signs and their location
Location is one of the most important factors in deciding the usefulness of hazard warning signs. A warning sign is only truly effective if it is placed at the right location. Also placing the exact sign for the desired location matters. If you place wrong signs at the location, workers might get confused and put themselves in a risky situation.
Signage should be placed close enough to the hazard. But the placement should not be this close that employees enter a potentially dangerous area without seeing the sign. The safety sign incharge must ask himself if the sign is positioned at the right place. Remember these signs are for the safety of the workers and should not put them in danger in any way. The workers should have time and space to be aware about taking proper precautions.
Avoid creating confusions
Many times there are more than two signs placed at one particular location. This is what confuses workers and makes them fall in risky situations. Signage is definitely an important element for workplace safety but too much signage can also be hazardous. The safety professionals need to be mindful of what signs they are placing. A small blend of two contradicting signs can cause a huge blunder. The safety professional should focus on the consistency across the job site. For example if an electrical warning sign is to be placed near two different machines then the messaging of the sign should be conveyed in similar ways at both the places. This helps workers to understand the warning quickly and act accordingly. Going overboard with hazard warning signs is very easy. Therefore, think about the purpose of a sign before placing it.
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