Safety is paramount, especially in the workplace. There are a litany of hazards that can cause not only personal harm but do damage to the best interests of the company.
For that reason, it is critical to have effective safety signs placed in the proper areas. If you aren’t sure how to approach the situation, there are a few tips on how to create effective safety signs.
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Keep it Simple
Perhaps the most helpful tip for creating effective safety signs is to keep it simple. After all, signs have a limited area for conveying a message and when things get convoluted, the message can wind up missing the mark. Keep it short and keep it sweet whenever possible.
In business and home improvement, safety precautions can make a huge difference. The best signs have a short, clear message to illustrate what you should or should not be doing in a particular area. It doesn’t have to be an instruction manual, but it does have to convey what needs to be done in a certain area.
Put Them in the Right Place
Even more important than having a concise message is having your signage posted in the right place. People need to be able to get the instructions and interpret the message in as little time as possible to prevent a possible accident from occurring. Even a few seconds too many can wind up resulting in an accident.
Effective safety signs should be posted in the appropriate areas. Directions for a particular machine or area make it easy for anyone walking by to connect the dots. The last thing that you want to happen is to have an employee try to figure out what the directions are only to carelessly walk right into an accident that could have been prevented. The most effective signs are right near specific machines or just before entering that particular area.
Colors are Your Friend
One of the worst things you could do from a safety standpoint is to make all safety signage the same. When the colors and appearance look the same, they tend to blend in when being walked by on a regular basis. The message doesn’t set it and the entire point winds up going missed. This is why using a litany of colors is the best move you can make.
Generally speaking, there are different categories that get assigned to different colors. You’d want to use red in areas where an employee should stop or not do something. Green is used to encourage action, yellow to promote caution. By using different colors, it makes recognizing and remembering each sign a lot easier, especially over a longer period of time. This ties into one of the aforementioned points about making things as simple as possible to understand the signage.
Promote and Educate
A simple mistake that employers make when it comes to safety signage is not mentioning it at all. There is the thought that the signage will speak for itself but that’s not necessarily true. When new signage goes into effect, make sure that it is pointed out to workers so that they are aware of what to look for.
Depending on the sign type, it might even help to explain things briefly. Even a quick explanation can be enough to stick in the minds of employees the next time that they walk past the sign. Every little bit helps when creating a safe work environment, so be sure to let everyone know where and when there will be signs and what they mean.
