How to Mitigate Your Risks at Work With the Right Type of Signage

If you're about to open a brand-new retail or commercial business that employs a number of staff members in a dynamic environment, you know that you have a duty of responsibility to ensure their safety. You should never automatically assume that they know how to react or to behave with due regard for that safety in every situation. Consequently, it is your responsibility to introduce a variety of different safety signs that are specifically designed to be effective. What do you need to think about as you order the signs? 

Necessity

Regulators make sure that all signs in a hazardous workplace environment are designed with consistency and according to rigorous Australian standards. You will be required to introduce these signs, not just from a regulatory perspective, but in order to comply with insurance rules as well.

Design Standards

Design is paramount, as each sign has to convey a message in a certain way so that it is easily and quickly understood in an emergency situation. Each example has to have language that is simple and consistent and must be fully legible. This means that you must always use a consistent font or typography and can never vary its colour as it has been, through experience, clearly identified as the most effective.

Each sign may need to convey quite a lot of information, so it must be laid out in such a way that it is not confusing or "cluttered." The information needs to be set out logically so that anyone reading it can quickly arrive at a conclusion and perform the necessary action in the circumstances.

Automaticity

This consistency helps to breed familiarity and will further help to cut down the amount of time needed to respond in an emergency situation. If the individual has seen this type of sign with regularity, then they may be able to react almost automatically, and this is the ideal scenario to strive for. The human brain is able to process and respond in situations like this without a lot of conscious thought, as the subconscious mind will have seen these messages before and will have become automatically attuned.

Your Choice

When it comes to safety signage, never try to reinvent the wheel. Have a word with your signage supplier and tell them what type of risks you're likely to encounter. They will be able to supply you with the right signage in the correct quantity, to help you mitigate those risks.