S2b: Inductions – office sites

It’s understandable that most organisations concentrate their safety efforts in areas of highly dangerous hazards. However, not doing as much as we could for office-based staff leads to three main difficulties.

• People in the office get hurt which is costly in terms of anguish, time and reputation – and may law cases.
• Office-based colleagues perceive (wrongly) that management doesn’t care for them as much and this may lead to the attitude “so why should we care about safety”.
• Colleagues at industrial worksites see “one rule for us and another for them” and this is just one additional excuse not to follow safety rules.

Thankfully some larger organisations now have inductions for office staff and for visitors – but the difficulty is how to have an induction process for office-based people when they may not see the need for it and indeed, may resent any “artificial rules”.

The Safety Improvers’ Office Induction provides a nine-point approach to helping office colleagues and visitors work even more safely.

1. Devise a small card for visitors and contractors to be issued at reception. This card will contain 8 to 10 basic safety rules.
2. Devise an eight-page pocket-size safety booklet for staff and contractors that they can carry with them.
3. Prepare a script for reception staff to use when visitors and contractors sign in. Naturally, reception staff will have to be well trained to greet people with the best possible safety message
4. Have a poster message from the most senior manager on site to be displayed in reception.
5. Give brief training of secretarial staff (and others) who come to collect visitors to reinforce the safety message as they are walking to the meeting venue.
6. As part of the Personnel company induction, have a short 1.5-hour interactive discussion session for new staff showing just how easy it is to get hurt in the office and at home – and how to avoid accidents
7. Devise a simple safety observation system, to be used in the same way those colleagues at industrial sites have to use.

This may seem like a lot of work, but it isn’t once you set it as a small project for a safety adviser in the organisation – all he/she will need is some guidance on how to set it up efficiently. There are templates and samples that can be adapted to your own organisation’s specific requirements.

Feel free to call for an initial no obligation chat and we’ll explain how straightforward it is to get your own office safety induction up and running – or how to enhance the one you already have. +44 0773 857 1945.

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