Recently, a survey carried out by IronmongersDirect revealed that many employees would not know what to do if there was a fire at their workplace. Alarmingly, 22% of people said that they would look to see what other people are doing before acting; even more shockingly, 13% of those polled said that they would simply continue with their work and ignore the alarm.
As an employer, the health and safety of your employees is your responsibility. Therefore, it is down to you to put in place and maintain the appropriate safety measures, as well as providing information on what to do in the event of a fire in your workplace. It is a legal requirement to carry out a risk assessment of your premises and review them regularly.
When carrying out a fire risk assessment, you will need to do the following:
- Identify all potential hazards
- Identify the people who are at risk (young children, disabled or elderly people)
- Evaluate all risks
- Remove or reduce all risks
- Record your findings
- Provide training to all members of staff
- Review periodically to ensure that there are no new risks and that people have not forgotten the correct company fire procedure
As fire speads very quickly, it is important that everybody evacuates the building quickly, safely, and calmly. This means that you need to:
- Provide accessible escape routes, keep them free of obstacles, and mark them clearly
- Use signs to remind employees what to do in the event of a fire
- Provide a designated safe meeting point for your staff
- Clearly mark all fire equipment using the appropriate signage
Here at Label Source, we take fire safety extremely seriously. We have a huge range of emergency access and fire safety signs, including disabled guidance safety signs, access and escape signs, fire equipment safety signs and projecting fire equipment safety signs.
Remember, if your workplace is missing any crucial fire and safety signs, you could face prosecution for breaching health and safety regulations.
