Your workplace is going to have visitors. It’s inevitable. Whether it’s a client, a contractor or a personal visit, at some point or another, someone who isn’t a member of staff, someone who hasn’t been updated regularly on company policy and doesn’t have a comprehensive understanding of your specific workplace, will be on your site.
Therefore, it’s necessary to have a policy in place to help educate and protect visitors. The Health and Safety at Work Act is a law that holds a responsibility to a company to ensure everybody that enters their premises is safe. It’s essential to ensure you’ve put into practise working visitor policies and follow them accordingly.
This is a realistic expectation for businesses. Protecting visitors is common-sense and commonplace to most. But, the best way to do this is to create working plans, briefings and protocols for visitors, as you do the actual workers. A crucial step in visitor safety is planning and following through with precautions.
The first approach to protecting visitors in a workplace is to create a safety briefing. This should be presented to the visitor before they enter the site. The safety briefing should make visitors aware of all the things that they need to be careful of, it should outline the risks and hazards and should include instructions on behaviour and any protective clothing they need to wear.
Once the hazards are outlined, it’s good practise to notify visitors of how these risks are managed. Visitors should be confident they are safe while on the premises. This comes through an understanding on what and what not to do. You yourself should also be confident visitors understand the workplace and proper protocol from your briefing.
While a safety briefing is a great place to start with visitor safety, there are a few more steps you can take to build a safety culture:
Warning Signage
Pre-warning signage that indicates clearly the hazards posed will keep visitors and workers on high alert. Ensure they’re positioned in a visible and obvious position to have the best impact.
Have a Hazard Board
A hazard board is set up at the entrance of the workplace. The hazard board should provide visitors with instructions on what to do on arrival. It should cover all the potential risks that entry to the site poses and what the visitor needs to do when they enter.
Use a Visitor Log
Visitor logs allow you to keep track of everyone that enters the workplace. It’s an important part of site security and allows you to manage those who visit your premises.
Have the Appropriate Safety Equipment
Having the right safety equipment is important for ensuring visitor safety. While you may have the right systems in place to protect your workers, thinking about visitor safety requires more in-depth assessment. Consider which areas of your site will be hosting visitors, and how you can improve the safety of these zones.
Creating and upholding a strict visitor safety plan is the best way to protect workplace visitors. Your safety practices should be clear, thorough and open enough to allow questions and input from visitors. Visitor protocol should be an important part of your overall safety culture. Using these practices, you can put your workplace in the best position to handle visitors correctly.
Dexters Visitor Safety Equipment
As Dexters are specialists in total workplace safety, we have the right equipment to ensure you have a sufficient visitor safety system. From physical barriers, to signage, we have suitable safety supplies to meet your needs. Check out our range on our website today.
Additionally, if you are in the market for complete safety systems or if you require assistance with finding the equipment you need – feel free to contact us. We’re able to fit you with the most suitable safety fittings for your specific needs. Get in touch with us for more information and start prioritising safety in your workplace.