When designing a building, you’re not only supposed to mind the spaciousness and aesthetics of its interior. You also have to account for the safety of the occupants within the workplace.
In fact, safety is an integral component of a building’s design. Engineers, architects, and designers all have to integrate safety measures within the building’s layout to comply with safety standards.
The last thing any property owner would want is to be caught in a lawsuit because of a wholly preventable accident caused by bad building practices. This, unfortunately, can be the case if you try to access cheaper shortcuts in the construction phase of your property.
It doesn’t matter whether your building is used for manufacturing, chemical processing, or commercial office work—businesses need to design their building with a high regard for safety. In doing so, your employees will be safe and productive and your assets will remain in good condition for years to come.
If you’re unsure how to proceed, this article will explore ways you can boost your workplace safety with some thoughtful layout changes. Let’s get right into it.
- Clear Signages and Marked Pathways
The first thing you must set up in your building are signages and pathways.
Employees can get lost when navigating the building to do something outside their everyday routine. Newcomers and visitors, even more so. In the worst cases, they may stumble upon restricted areas, which can expose them and all the other occupants to all sorts of safety risks.
To prevent people from going to places where they shouldn’t, it’s important to set up clear signages to inform people of what’s behind closed doors. For instance, you should put a marked “Do Not Enter” or “Authorised Personnel Only” sign in rooms that contain hazardous goods.
Furthermore, you should also clearly mark emergency exits and fire extinguisher locations. If your property has heavy public foot traffic, putting guide foot stamps on the floors can help organise crowd movement.
By utilising visible and clear signs, your employees and visitors can more easily navigate facilities without having to worry about stumbling to places where they shouldn’t go. It also helps ease foot traffic and prevents people from bumping into each other when they’re in a rush.
- Ergonomic Workstations
Your employees are key people in the company who need to be happy and healthy to help them achieve a productive state. They’re also human, and they need to be kept cosy and comfortable in their workplace for the sake of their health and commitment to their duties.
One way of helping enhance this sense of comfort in your employees is by giving them an ergonomic workstation. Placing an adjustable chair, monitor stand, lumbar support, and an adjustable desk can help them maintain a good posture and prevent the risk of fatigue and repetitive stress.
By investing in ergonomic furniture, you can help minimise the risk of posture-related health problems. This investment is especially crucial for owners of commercial buildings that have office workers as their main tenants. An ergonomic workstation keeps your employees healthy for hours on end, even if they’ve been sitting for hours.
- Proper Ventilation and Air Quality Control
Another key component of safety is air quality. If a room is too stuffy, stale air can build up and worsen the air quality of the workspace. This can make for an uncomfortable and unproductive time on the property.
But that’s not the worst of it. If the workspace is used for industrial processing, chemicals and toxic fumes can also build up in the work site. This can introduce pollutants into the atmosphere, which can increase the risk of respiratory issues for the employees working within these quarters.
To prevent poor air quality from permeating within these confined spaces, it’s essential to design the building with proper ventilation in mind. This ventilation can be natural or mechanical, but it has to be constantly maintained and operational to ensure the safety of the people within the worksite.
Furthermore, proper air control management also helps prevent the risk of reactive chemicals from coming into close contact with one another. All it takes is a gas leak and a sudden change of pressure to cause a spontaneous eruption.
As such, if you want to keep your building safe and workers productive, it’s essential to ventilate key areas of your property—such as the main worksite and dangerous goods storage units.
- Adaptive and Bright Lighting
Another crucial but oft-overlooked safety feature to account for when designing a building is its lighting. Lighting plays a crucial role in illuminating a space. This helps enhance visibility and prevents people from bumping into things that they didn’t initially see.
Lighting is especially useful outdoors and in long narrow corridors, as it helps ensure safe passage for people walking in these places. It’s also useful in compact spaces, such as storage units, to prevent the risk of bumping into things and causing accidents.
Furthermore, lighting also plays a role in affecting one’s mood and health. Natural lights can provide a sizeable increase in one’s mood, helping improve your employee’s focus. Soft lights, on the other hand, provide a calming effect and reduce eye strain.
If the thought of spending more on lights scares you, don’t worry. There are motion-sensor LED lights that don’t cost too much to buy and operate. They’re better for the environment too, at least compared to fluorescent lighting.
By being mindful of your lighting, your building can become a brighter and more inviting space—boosting both physical health by reducing the risk of accidents and falls and mental health by reducing the number of dimmed areas.
- Storage Cabinets for Hazardous Goods
Another essential design solution you should have for your building is a dedicated storage zone for dangerous goods.
Hazardous goods can corrode, spill, leak, or catch fire under the wrong conditions, and this can have disastrous effects on both the occupants and the building structure itself.
Having storage cabinets is a good way to ensure that accidents won’t happen due to improper storage. These storage solutions are ideal since they are specifically engineered and designed to hold the chemical type they’re advertised to store. For example, petroleum gas storage cabinets are built solely for this particular compound—and it may not be effective in storing other forms of hazardous goods.
By having a storage facility and a fitting hazard cabinet on your property, you’re keeping the hazards physically distant from the occupants, minimising the risk of injury or health issues in the rare event that an accident does occur.
- Equipped Wash Areas in Industrial Sites
Hygiene and safety standards are essential to uphold in industrial areas such as factories and chemical processing plants. The reason is simple: these environments are rife with chemicals and substances that can cause health problems people unknowingly ingest or get exposed to them for too long.
If your building falls under this category, having a decontamination facility to rinse off chemicals, dust, and contaminants after the shift is crucial.
Be sure to construct separate eyewash stations and safety showers outside the work area. Don’t just use the general washroom as this can expose the public to harmful pathogens and chemicals that may not be good for their health.
With a proper decontamination facility, your employees will be in a clean state the moment they step out of the facility area. Furthermore, it also ensures that your workers can rapidly address potential accidents (like spills in their bodies) immediately without having to step out too far to the nearest washroom.
- Fire Alarms and Emergency Exits
An emergency has a non-zero chance of occurring, even if you’ve enforced proper safety practices within your premises.
In the worst events, your occupants may need to evacuate. Having an emergency exit is mandatory for all buildings—and it’s essential that accessing this space is clear for both staff and visitors.
Besides that, you should also have tools to slow or stop the progression of a fire within your building. Fire alarms and fire extinguishers must be installed or readily available in key parts of the building.
This way, you can minimise the casualties or injuries in your building in the event of an actual emergency. That said, be sure to conduct regular fire drills to ensure that your staff know exactly what to do in an emergency situation.
