Ensuring the workplace is safe for your employees will be an essential part of your standard risk assessments, but are you giving the same due care and attention to the safety of your visitors?
As soon as a visitor is on your business’ ground, their safety becomes your responsibility. Just a few simple steps can vastly improve the health and safety of any visitors, which will in turn protect your business and your employees as well.
Below, we’ve outlined our top five safety guidelines for visitors that you can easily implement in your workplace.
1. Consider Accessibility
Before bringing anyone on site, you should consider how accessible your premises are. Although general accessibility measurements should already be in place, finding out whether your guests will need any additional requirements shows that you’re considering each guests’ individual wellbeing.
You can contact your guests in advance to find out if they have any additional requirements that you’ll need to take into consideration during their visit. This advance preparation will make their visit as streamlined as possible, and will allow visitors to get the most out of their trip to your workplace.
2. Sign All Visitors In and Out
Whether you use a physical book or a digital setup, a visitor sign in system is an essential way of ensuring all visitors are accounted for in case of an emergency. If, for example, there’s a fire while you have visitors on site, you’ll need to know exactly who should be accounted for when everyone gathers at your fire assembly points.
Remember, it’s just as important to have them sign out for the exact same reason. In the event of a fire or other disaster, it’s important that emergency services and other people are not unnecessarily exposed to a risk by searching for someone who isn’t even on site.
3. Assign a Point of Contact
By having an assigned point of contact, visitors will be less likely to find themselves lost or at any point unsure of where to be during their visit. Make sure they know who their primary point of contact will be and how to get in touch with them in the lead up to and during their visit.
If possible, you should let them know who this will be via email or phone some time beforehand. Establishing this relationship prior to your guests’ visit will make the introduction on site easier, and likely put your visitors at ease before their arrival.
4. Conduct a Thorough Induction
Perhaps the most crucial part of your visitor policy and procedures is ensuring that visitors are fully prepared and equipped for any on-site hazards. Whether there’s machinery or chemicals on site that they need to keep a safe distance from, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) they need to wear, or something smaller like a faulty microwave in the break room, make sure your guests are aware of absolutely everything that could pose a risk to them while on site.
As part of this induction, you should also make sure your visitors know exactly where all the emergency exits and fire assembly points are in case of an emergency. Again, it may put your visitors at ease to provide as much of this information as possible in advance so that they know exactly what to expect upon arrival.
5. Give Them a Visitor Pass
Once all preparations are done and you’re ready to welcome guests into your workplace, give visitors a lanyard with a visitor pass to help other people on site differentiate them from the rest of the workforce.
You can use these passes to give the visitor as few or as many permissions as you would like; for example, colour coding the passes could signify different areas that a visitor is allowed access to.
Alternatively, a simple visitor label with the guest’s full name filled in could be all the indication you need for clear differentiation between staff and guests.
Welcome Your Visitors with Label Source
Creating a set of workplace visitor guidelines are a surefire way for your employees and your visitors to be as comfortable and efficient as possible whenever you have guests on site.
Here at Label Source, we believe visitor labels are a great first step in ensuring the safety of your workplace visitors.
Keep up to date with the latest health and safety news with our blog, or get in touch to find out how else we can keep your staff and visitors safe at work.
