4 Ways To Keep Employees Safe From Fire

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Of all the hazards in a commercial office, fire is the biggest threat. It's the thing that stops work immediately and demands that you respond to it. We've all seen at least one report of a deadly office building fire that swept through and causes several floors to be set ablaze. The stacks of grey smoke and the giant flames shooting out of the windows is a terrifying sight. This should be even more alarming when you are a business owner in a commercial building. Your offices are a place of work but if you don't keep in mind that fire could harm your employees, you may end up regretting it. However, just like almost every single business that is in an office, usually you don't own the floors. You're just renting office space which means you have to work with the owner of the building or the real estate agent to put measures in place for the event of a potential fire.

Be ruthless with standards

Any exit door should never ever be blocked. Many floors will have an exit door that leads out onto a stairwell for people to walk down and get out of the building as soon as possible. This means that every business with a floor will have the responsibility of keeping that exit clear at all times. If you are set with this responsibility, you need to be ruthless with the standard of always keeping it clear. Don't even let a delivery of printer paper block it for 5 minutes.

Training employees

It sounds easy enough, to just walk down the stairs and get out of the building in case of a fire. However when it's a life and death situation, people can often behave like confused sheep not knowing where to go or what to do. Train all your staff to respond calmly and orderly to a fire alarm. There are many HR services that will give professional training to businesses regarding this issue.

Assess true risk

Do you really know how bad the fire risk is in your own office. It's one thing to respond to a fire that is on another floor, but if it's in your office the risk changes dramatically against you. Hire a company that does professional commercial building fire risk assessments such as Allcott Commercial. They identify fire hazards in your office such as things that could ignite, oil or flammable liquid risks and also any exposed wiring.

Make change happen

If you do use the services of a professional company to have fire risk assessment, take your finding to the landlord of the building. Anything that is out of your control such as a gas pipe leak needs to be brought up to those responsible for maintaining the building. Don't sit on the information you have, make some real change happen by demanding the fixes occur.

When you hire someone to work for you, their safety now should become your priority. They trust you to supply them with a professional yet safe environment to work in. Train employees to respond to fires but also to maintain good safety standards every day.