“Fire safety at work” is a phrase that gets many employees rolling their eyes– for some, there’s nothing worse than getting put through a fire drill at work or listening to fire safety information for the umpteenth time. However, fire safety is no joke, and there’s a long history of evidence as to why a well-oiled safety protocol saves lives.

Recent events in the Amazon and in France show us that fire safety protocol is something that’s only really appreciated when a crisis occurs. Having routine, procedure and an array of fire equipment safety signs works to react to and proactively prevent fires.

Here, we list how to maintain fire safety at work, from safety signs to fire drills.

Fire Equipment Safety Signs

Employers and duty holders are legally responsible and obligated to keep their employees safe. Proactively preventing fires is the safest and most efficient method to achieve this responsibility.

The best way to achieve this is by using clear, legible safety signs placed at vital points in a business’s premises. Each safety sign needs to adhere to UK, EU and international standards, including ISO EN 7010, BS 5499 and the Safety Signs and Signals Regulations 1996. Key areas must be signposted, including:

• Fire doors.
• Fire exits.
• “Keep shut” signs.
• Fire Action notes and instructions.
• Disabled guidance safety.
• Fire equipment (extinguishers, alarms, etc.).

These signs not only help ensure safety at times of panic, but it allows a workforce to be continually reminded of procedure for escape when on work premises. Once your signs are in place, the best way to improve fire safety at work is repetition of drills and procedure.

Repetition: The Importance of Fire Drills

Fire drills give employees a chance to practice emergency procedures and employers an opportunity to review their protocols in a safe, simulated environment. Even if you’ve properly signposted your workplace and dropped volumes of safety literature on your employees’ desks, it means nothing if you don’t put it into practice.

Primarily, the goal of a fire drill is to determine if your employees understand your fire safety protocol and can carry them out. Not only is it important to run a fire drill on a trimonthly basis, but it is equally important to review, make notes and analyse places where your fire health and safety in the workplace is not up to standard.

Alongside fire drills, reviewing the workplace with an assessment is essential in producing a watertight fire safety foundation. During an assessment, you must:

• Identify all fire hazards.
• Identify members of staff at risk.
• Identify temporary staff, contractors and on-site visitors at risk.
• Remove, reduce and evaluate risks.
• Record findings and keep on record.
• Review and update the assessment regularly and keep staff informed.

Assessments are another learning opportunity for your business, especially when used preceding or after a fire drill.

Trust Procedure

Overall, once fire safety signs are in place, drills are scheduled and assessments are rigorously undertaken, you need to trust procedure and repetition. By reminding staff, through drills, assessments and changes to business protocol, they will be more than ready should a fire breakout or threaten.  

Don’t Take Any Chances

If you wish to improve your fire safety at work, then check out our range of fire equipment safety signs. Our entire range satisfies UK, EU and international standards, keeping your employees and your business safe.

After 25 years of trading and being an authoritative voice in the ever-changing world of labels, Label Source director Colin Penfold reflects on the company’s journey and how its expertise, reach and knowledge in the industry has grown.

Label Source was formed as a limited company in September 1994, although it had been trading for two years prior to that. We had previous experience of supplying ranges of labels, signs, tapes and tags from a catalogue (as this prior to the growth of online sales on the internet). The key objective was to provide a wide selection of products in low quantities of issue to service the UK market primarily. The market place is very diverse ranging from Government Departments, NHS, Manufacturing, Education (Universities, Colleges, Schools), Construction, Facilities Management to name but a few.

Bill George, who ended up as MD of that company, joined Label Source afterwards and worked with us until his retirement last year. So between us we had over 50 years’ experience in the industry.

The aim was to select the most cost-effective method of manufacture, rather than being constrained by in-house print capacity, where efforts are sometimes used to try and fit work on machines, which they are totally unsuited.

Besides offering ranges of products to British, EU and international requirements for standard format products, another element was to provide a custom printing service, where technical advice would be given on the suitability of products so that they were fit for purpose.

An inhibiting factor in the early years was the amount and frequency of catalogues issued compared with some of our larger competitors, although many had a much more limited range of products with a concentration on health and safety signs only.

Our products are manufactured by various print processes including hot foil, screen, flexographic, letterpress, digital printing, chemical etching, laser and rotary engraving and metal pressings.

Materials are varied including synthetic pressure-sensitive films, such as vinyl, polyester, polypropylene, security materials, rigid and semi-rigid plastics, metals (anodised aluminium, brass, stainless steel in different grades), internal and external engraving laminates.

The major factor to give parity against large competitors was the advent of the internet, and particularly when shopping carts were introduced. We are now on our fifth generation website, and the last four have operated with shopping carts. These have become more sophisticated over the years, although many of the key factors have remained fairly consistent in the last 10 years, there have been trends towards more mobile purchasing.

There have been developments, especially on adhesive technology, with the introduction of super-adhesives, the improvements in availability of material substrate choice (particularly in digital printing), and laminates.

Key product types include asset marking tags, health and safety signs to latest ISO regulations, pipeline marking tapes, labels and tags, equipment marking including CE standards, quality and calibration labels and tags.

As for myself, I initially began work with AB Electronics, the Irish Export Board and BT. At BT, I was the Marketing Manager for the Label Centre, part of the BT Manufacturing Group, for six years. Here, my expertise in the industry of labels grew with my experience. As part of this job, I helped supply British Telecom, the Post Office and other organisations with several label catalogues, including safety signs. My experience at BT gave me the expertise to flourish at Label Source, as well as the industry knowledge to help make it what it is today.

Looking back, 25 years have flown by, and we’re excited to see how the industry will change going forward!

As always, if you need anything from the world of labels, check out our range and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

From counterculture movements to start-up brands, figuring out how to print stickers and how to make vinyl stickers is an important step in establishing a sense of identity. DIY sticker making started to become popular in the late seventies’ music, political and skateboarding scene before becoming an avenue for artistic expression.

Now, printing stickers can be a useful addition to establishing a brand identity, as well as being a bit of fun.

Here, Label Source details how to print stickers, recommends the best printer for stickers, as well as directs you on how to buy sticker paper from us.

What Type of Sticker Paper Do You Need?

The foundation of all good stickers is high-quality sticker paper. Figuring out where to buy the best sticker paper can be difficult, so first you need to decide what type of sticker suits your needs. Broadly-speaking, there are two types of stickers:

• Rolls – Roll stickers, as the name suggests, come on a roll and should be used on printers suitable for accepting that format, namely direct thermal or thermal transfer printers. The former is limited to using thermal papers and tends to be used for packaging labels or till receipts. The latter requires the use of ribbons made of paper, vinyl, or polyester to provide more durable stickers for product or equipment marking.
• Sheets – These tend to be used for laser, inkjet and digital printers, and are usually die cut on the sheet. The most common type of sheet sticker material is self-adhesive paper, although polyester can be used on laser printers to provide waterproof and more robust stickers. Vinyl should not be used on laser printers as the heat of the laser can cause problems during printer operation.

What Printer Should You Use?

In terms of printers, you should opt for a good quality Inkjet printer. While most printers of this type should be fine, sticker aficionados should aim for a device that supports CMYK printing and a resolution of at least 1200 dpi.

How to Print Stickers at Home

Firstly, you’ll need to create your own sticker design with some image editing or production software. It’s possible to do this in a simple programme like Word, but the more professional the programme, the higher the quality the final image will be.

Next, you need to colour match the images to your printer. Almost all printers use CMYK processing. Pantone is another option, which gives a better quality, but at a higher price. Just check the CMYK colour processing is working appropriately before printing the stickers.

Following that, review the designs and ensure the colours are balanced. A lot of black or dark tones will result in a lower-quality image.

To finish, print a test sheet on a normal piece of paper to make sure you’re happy with the designs. Then, load up your desired sticker paper, print and die-cut the images loose. Just make sure the ink is dry!

Do You Have Everything You Need?

Overall, if you want to have good stickers, then you need good quality sticker paper, and Label Source has some of the best in Inkjet suitable sticker paper stocked. Check it out!

For more from the ever-changing world of labels, be sure to follow Label Source on Facebook and Twitter.

Mailing labels are an important part of maintaining the trust of modern mail communications. The answer to “what is a mailing label” is as follows: a recognisable symbol that governs or advises the handling of goods.

A shipping or mailing label could be used simply to detail shipping and return addresses, but there’s a range of others that are advisory. If you’ve ever seen a “handle with care” symbol, for example, that’s an advisory mailing label.

A mailing label prevents a courier or handler from putting themselves in danger, as well as maintaining a fragile product’s condition through storage, handling and transit advice. Below, we list common uses for mailing labels and their advantages.

Uses of Mailing Labels

Mailing labels are used every day in the shipping and mail industry. Broadly, a mailing label falls into one of two categories:

• Shipping labels with delivery information
• Labels and stickers that provide cautionary advice

Shipping labels need to convey certain delivery information. If you’re a business, you need to make sure the mailing labels you use for delivery have the following qualities:

• Roughly A6 in size
• The place of origin i.e. the address the package was shipped from
• The destination of the package
• The package’s weight and dimensions
• A tracking number and barcode
• Shipping class (first-class, expedited, etc.)

Shipping labels can change from courier to courier, but the majority of them have the same structure. The top left of the label will be the destination address, with the weight and dimensions at the top right. Below that will usually be the place of origin, then at the bottom will be coded information such as a barcode, QR code, tracking number, etc. A shipping class will usually be near the top too.

The other type of mailing label provides advice for handling, storage, etc. This is a must for fragile items, as well as those with potentially volatile contents. Label examples include:

• Do not stack
• Do not use blades
• Handle with care
• Open this end
• Keep frozen
• Do not drop
• Mixed pallet/carton/parts/load

This is but a small cross-section of mailing labels. The logos on these labels must satisfy international standards of graphic designs under the ISO 780. ISO, shorthand for the International Organisation for Standardisation, sets standards for worldwide shipping.

The ISO 780 “specifies a set of graphical symbols conventionally used for marking of distribution packages in their physical distribution chain to convey handling instructions.” So, if you’re using mailing labels, ensure they hit these standards.

For more on the modern role mailing labels, you may want to check out our previous blog – How Labels and Signs Help With Food Shipping - for more information.

Advantages of Mailing Labels

Using mailing labels has several major advantages for your business or brand. Namely, the use of proper mailing labels makes a business appear more professional. For example, imagine getting a fragile package with a barely legible shipping label and no fragile warning sticker anywhere on it. If you dropped said package and broke its contents, then the business would be blamed for not providing proper warning, thus evaporating any possibility of the customer returning.

Shipping labels lead to less missed deliveries, too, which can only be a positive for a business. If you’ve suffered from delivery issues recently, then consider changing and updating your mailing label process.

Packaging labels can also simplify and organise the whole shipping process, especially when barcodes are used. In fact, we wrote an in-depth piece about the history of barcodes and their role in shipping, so check it out if you want to know more.

Get With The Times

Label Source stocks a range of self-adhesive mailing labels suitable for a wide variety of businesses. If you want to keep up with the latest industry news or are simply a fellow label fanatic, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 

The slippery when wet sign does what it says on the tin: it warns people of wet, dangerous flooring. Whether it’s been cleaned or there’s been a spillage, a “caution slippery when wet” sign is essential to safeguard people from potentially life-changing falls and slips.

The sign has been used so often in modern life that it’s difficult to imagine life without it. How did people survive without the sign, and what are the consequences of refusing or incorrectly using one?

Why Should You Use A “Caution Slippery When Wet” Sign?

Slipping is now the most common form of workplace injury according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), making up 31% of non-lethal accidents. In 2017/18, 3.9 million workdays were lost as a result of non-fatal workplace injuries, meaning slips were responsible for roughly 1.3 million of those. In essence, slipping costs businesses both in lawsuits and lost labour days.

Many accidents can be avoided with proper use of wet floor signs. While slips, trips and falls have a multitude of causes, not properly signposting spillages and wet floors still contributes a significant amount to these accidents. Not only does this leave liability on the property owner, but it can also lead to a demoralised and injured workforce.

How Much Could Improper Use Cost You?

Even to this day, businesses are still making near-fatal mistakes when it comes to slippery when wet signs. Not only must businesses identify when a spillage has occurred, but they must also ensure the sign is set-up and maintained properly.

For example, a casino in Cincinnati had to award a woman $3 million in compensation after she slipped on a flat wet floor sign. An employee of the business had walked past the sign without propping it up before the woman slipped and suffered life-changing injuries.

This was a rare case of the importance of using these signs properly. Signs must be placed in clear view, as well as be placed on a stable footing. As the case above shows, a sign itself can become a danger, costing businesses and lives.

How to Use a Wet Floor Sign

If you want to follow wet floor sign best practice, then you need to hit the following guidelines:

• Ensure there is a wet floor sign available for every entrance, including warehouses, just in case it’s a particularly wet day. These are well suited for icy, and snowy conditions.
• Make sure there is a sign for all bathrooms.
• If your business has a kitchen, then you’ll need signs ready for near the dishwasher and roughly 3 to account for spillages.
• Make sure signs are prominently placed so that employees and customers can see them when walking into wet areas.
• Place signs around both sides of a spill. Triangulating around the spill is also a decent option if you have the spare signs. Alternatively, you could use our barrier tapes.
• If the spill is around the corner, then place one sign in sight beforehand.

Overall, there’s never such thing as playing it too safe when it comes to wet floor signs. Always be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

Label Source stocks the best in slippery when wet signs as part of our warning signs range, suitable for a variety of businesses. For more from the ever-changing world of labels, safety and workplace efficiency, be sure to follow Label Source on Facebook and Twitter.