Tackling Electrical Safety Hazards In Your Office

Posted on Aug 30 2016 - 9:57pm by Editorial Staff

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Modern business, not to mention our day-to-day lives, is totally dependent on electricity. Due to this, it can be easy for you and your employees to get into an attitude of complacency, and forget the inherent danger that comes with an abundance of electrical equipment. As a business owner, you have a legal responsibility to ensure that any electrical risks are mitigated or eliminated. Here are some important steps to prevent electrical safety hazards.

I’ll start this off with a warning: don’t overload! When you’re a start-up owner working in a small office space, especially in 2016, it can be easy to overload your power sockets with computers, monitors and so on. When there’s an inadequate number of wall sockets, the temptation is to use extension cords and other solutions to temporarily solve the issue. You may be able to do this and be totally fine. However, to ensure you’re not running any unnecessary risks, it’s best to have a professional electrical survey carried out on the office. This will identify the safe number of power sockets and their positions for your needs. Aside from that, using an excessive number of double plugs and extension leads can create a serious trip hazard.

Having some professional safety testing done in your office is another important step in ensuring your employees are all safe. Official health and safety regulations are constantly changing. As a result, you need to seek out professional advice on your responsibilities, and how safe your office’s electrical equipment is. There are many testing and tagging services you can hire, which will ensure that all of the equipment in your home, from your communal printer to your desk fans is 100% safe. Often, business owners and employees unknowingly use equipment in a way that has the potential to cause dangerous faults. Following this kind of inspection, you should also brief your employees on everything you’ve learned about electrical safety. The aim is to get them identifying dangerous faults such as frayed leads and trip hazards. The sooner you or one of your managers finds out about these faults, the safer your whole workforce will be.

While it’s important to get people in the habit of looking out for electrical faults, it’s a big mistake to have anyone other than a professional try to fix them. When a relatively minor fault bring everyone’s work to a standstill, there’ll probably be some volunteer who steps forward and claims to be able to fix it. If you were to let this person have at it, they may well be able to fix it in an instant. However, this is a risk which you can’t afford to take. As I mentioned before, health and safety laws are constantly changing, and a lot of the equipment in an average office is a lot more complex than it first appears. Due to this, it’s essential that you only ever let a qualified electrician tamper with any electrical faults.

Follow these precautions, and electricity will be a handy tool in your office rather than a dangerous hazard!

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Editorial Staff at I2Mag is a team of subject experts.