Office safety | The Requirements in the Offices

                                           OFFICE SAFETY

THE REQUIREMENTS IN THE OFFICES FOR OFFICE SAFETY AND HAZARD IDENTIFICATION

OFFICE SAFETY

THE REQUIREMENTS IN THE OFFICES FOR OFFICE SAFETY AND HAZARD IDENTIFICATION

The Health, Safety and Environment Policy of organizations are committed to providing a safe and healthy workplace for employees. This includes ensuring that a safe work environment is maintained in all the offices across the companies or organizations.

The offices are considered relatively safer to work in than other sites i.e. workshops, construction, production facilities, etc. There are however potential hazards and risks associated with working in office facilities.

The maintaining and implementing of a safe and healthy office environment require attention to work station design, indoor environments such as temperature, humidity, light, noise, and ventilation, space, task design, psychological factors personal interactions, work pace, job control, physical hazards and sometimes, chemical or other environmental exposures in the offices of companies.

This lead to injury or illness from physical hazards such as cords walkways in the office, leaving cabinet and drawers open, objects falling from overhead to task-related in the working at height in the ladder, Speed or repetition, duration, job control, etc. Continued jobs may cause stress that results when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities or resources of the worker may also result in illness or personal injury. The staff/ employees must familiarize themselves with this part and implement the requirements in their respective work activities.

This Standard shall be strictly complied with to raise awareness and improve focus on the office safety topic, often relegated to a lower rank in priorities despite recognized hazards and control measures.

This office safety standard aims on identifying and implementing appropriate control measures to manage the risks, threats, hazards, and impacts associated with the offices or premises.

The purpose of this office safety standard is to:

1.       Identify/describe the common hazards and associated risks in the office work environment in the office.

2.       Maintain / Increase safety awareness amongst employees working in office locations or premises.

The Companies/organization ensure maintaining a safe and healthy office environment requires attention to the workstation on the office premises.

Safety in the indoor office environments:

·       The temperature in the office

·       Humidity in the office

·       Light in the offices

·       Noise in the offices

·       Ventilation in the offices

·       Space in the offices

·       Task design in the offices

·       Psychological factors personal interactions, work pace, job control, and physical hazards in the office.

The offices that can lead to injury or illness in different situations: 

·       In the office physical hazards such as cords across walkways or stairs.

·       Leaving low cabinets and drawers open in the office.

·       In the offices' objects falling from overhead to task-related speed or repetition, duration, job activities control, etc.

·       The continuous job stress that results when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities or resources of the staff or employees of companies may also result in illness or personal injury.

·       The company’s staff or employees must familiarize themselves with this part and implement the requirements in their respective work areas or premises.

The International companies or organization requirements set out in this standard shall be strictly complied with to raise awareness and improve focus on the office safety topic, often relegated to a lower rank in priorities despite recognized hazards and controls.

The requirements in the offices for office safety:

Ensure the offices vary from multistoried, air-conditioned buildings to small areas such as those offices located in remote sites of onshore and offshore locations working areas. While hazards in the office cannot always be as obvious as those in main head offices in the city of construction companies or other organizations but it is refineries, drilling rigs, and offshore platforms, office personnel can also be exposed to a range of health safety environment hazards in the offices, including but not limited to the following:

·       Ergonomic hazards such as those due to the design of workstations or premises area.

·       Electrical hazards in the offices

·       Chemical hazards such as those from cleaning agents for cleaning offices.

·       Fire Hazards in the offices.

·       Indoor Environment hazards in the offices

·       The biological hazards such as those in pantries and restrooms or first aid waste

·       Psychosocial hazards such as stress, and fatigue in the offices

·       Hazards involving Manual handling due to shifting of material in the offices

·       Hazards involving Working at Heights in the working on step ladder etc.

·       Slips, trips, and falls due to mismanagement of cables or unwanted material stacked on the access in the office.

THE HAZARD IDENTIFICATION IN OFFICES PREMISES:

Hazard identification in the office is the process of identifying situations or events that could give rise to injury or illness in the office.  The office workplace inspections, audits, walk throws, incidents and near-miss reports are important tools for workplace hazards identification and control measures. Specifically the consideration of the type of injury or illness possible for example musculoskeletal disorders (MSD)) and the situations and events that could create the potential for the injury or illness, for example, prolonged bending over a low desk during a collating task helps in identifying risk and the associated controls measures. The personnel shall be informed about the workplace hazards through appropriate communication with staff.

The hazards that can be present in an office include but are not limited to:

·       The ergonomics hazards such as poor workstation set up in an office, poor posture or ergonomics, and material manual handling lead to musculoskeletal injuries of personnel in the office.

·       Fire hazards in the office such as fire from damaged power cords, fire from waste or flammable materials in the office, etc.

·       Electrical hazards such as damaged electrical cords or overloaded power points can lead to the risk of electric shock, electrocution, electrical fire, etc.

·       Chemical hazards, such as vapors in the atmosphere from paint, solvents, and bleaches or airborne particles like photocopier toner in the office.

·       Mechanical hazards, such as filing cabinets that tend to tip over when heavily laden top drawers are opened, tripping hazards in the office premises.

·       Physical hazards, such as glare or reflections from screens, hot components of photocopiers, poorly designed chairs that do not provide the user with adequate back support, and poorly designed jobs and tasks that demand prolonged work in a fixed posture in the office premises.

·       Psychosocial hazards, such as the need to perform excessive workloads under pressure, lack of satisfaction from a job where there is inadequate recognition of work performed or repetitive work, and insufficient task variety in the office.

·       Environmental hazards such as indoor environment, wastes, usage of resources in the office, etc.