This blog is a guest post from Quadriga Health and Safety – experts in keeping employees and experts in keeping employees and business healthy and safe at work.

Office health and safety is often overlooked in business. Many office jobs, like sitting at a desk and typing at computer, don’t seem to suggest much risk. However, working in an office environment can present many hazards each day. If your business is based in an office, or includes an office, as a manager you have a legal responsibility to keep that environment safe for people to work in and ensure that effective fire precautions are maintained.

This blog explains what you should consider to provide good health and safety in an office.

Carrying Out an Office Risk Assessment and Making Changes

When you employ five or more people, you have a legal obligation to have a written Health and Safety policy. Part of the process of putting together a policy is to carry out a risk assessment. In an office, this should involve identifying the hazards and risks across the whole office area and evaluating them, before making changes and putting processes in place to mitigate them. A fire safety risk assessment is also required, laying out how fire risk is minimized and what precautions such as fire alarms, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, fire doors and staff training are required.

Hazards and changes could include removing computer wires that are trailing across the floor, or placing a carpet along the floor of a slippery corridor. You should record all the information – hazards, changes you make and the controls required – and keep it on file for future reference.

Creating a Health and Safety Induction for Your Office Staff

Many potential office hazards, which can lead to accidents and injuries, can be caused by your staff. This could include an employee:

• Tripping over a box of files that have been left on the floor
• Obstructing electrical equipment or placing combustibles near heaters
• Falling off a chair after using it to reach items on a high shelf
• Causing a filing cabinet to topple over after leaving a heavy cabinet drawer wide open
• Injuring their back after bending down to carry a heavy box of printer paper
• Obstructing a fire exit leading to difficulty or dangers in evacuating a building
• Suffering a neck injury from sitting uncomfortably at a desk when working on a computer
• Wedging fire doors open.

To prevent such accidents from happening, you should put processes in place and make sure your staff follow these rules whenever working in the office. One way to do this is to have each member of your staff complete a health and safety induction, including new employees when they join your company. This could involve them watching official videos about potential hazards in the office and how to avoid them, as well as training sessions about the safety procedures they should follow. You could also provide leaflets and display posters to remind staff about office safety. Also consider a first day induction on fire safety, the importance of fire precautions such as keeping fire doors closed, how to raise the alarm, how to evacuate the building and the escape routes and assembly points.

Safety Procedures for Your Staff to Follow in the Office

These could range from instructing employees to do simple things, like:

• Shutting filing cabinet drawers after using them
• Keeping corridor floors and doorways free from clutter
• Using a step ladder, rather than a chair, to reach something on a high shelf
• Taking part in regular fire drills.

You could also provide them with training to follow more detailed procedures, such as:

• Knowing how to make sure an office chair and computer screen are set at the correct height to avoid neck and back injuries when typing at a desk
• A step-by-step process of the correct technique to bend, lift and carry heavy items
• The process they should follow when reporting an accident
• Knowing what to do in the event of a fire, including training on how to raise the alarm, use a fire extinguisher and the process of exiting the building safely.

To ensure that staff carry out such processes correctly, you should also provide the right equipment for them. This includes items like stepladders and adjustable office chairs, as well as an accident book to report any accidents that take place.

Quadriga Can Help You with Office Health and Safety

You should always ensure you provide effective health and safety, whatever company you run, whether it’s an office, shop or factory. With our expert health and safety service, we can provide you with what you need to keep you, your team and your business safe. We hold regular training courses and seminars and can also provide you with tailored consultancy. To find out more, please call Quadriga on 0118 929 9920 or click here to email us.