Why Are Wet Floor Signs Important?

Wet floor signs are important because they alert customers and workers to potential hazards – without a wet floor sign slips and trips can occur, which could be bad news for your business. Wet floor signs are usually yellow A-Boards that are placed over or near a spill or leakage of fluid to alert people to avoid this area.

If you are looking to invest in wet floor signs, they are important because:

1. Improves the Safety Of Your Workers
2. Increases the Safety Of Visitors
3. It Is The Law
4. They Reduce Risks

1. Improves the Safety Of Your Workers

The safety of your workers should be your top priority. Making sure every workplace hazard is addressed quickly will help to reduce these issues.  This includes slips, trips and falls that can happen due to unmarked wet floors. Workplace injuries have been reported to have cost businesses £16.2 billion in 2018/19. This can be prevented with proper health and safety equipment. 

A wet floor sign is one of the many things that should be provided to ensure the health and safety of your workers. Remember to also provide further PPE and other signage.

2. Increases the Safety Of Visitors

Visitors coming into your workplace will also need to be notified of wet floors. Wet floor signs are important here as a wet floor can cause the visitor to trip if not warned of the potential threat.

Furthermore, visitors have come to see how your business functions, if your health and safety is not up to par and injures them, they will not leave with a good impression. Using wet floor signs, as well as other safety signs, will help to keep everybody as safe as possible and leave people with a good impression.

3. It is the Law

Wet floor signs are also important because it is the law to put them in place. Under the Liable Premises Law, the owner or manager of the workplace must warn others of ‘foreseeable hazards’. This means that if there is reasonable doubt that this issue could pose as a risk to anyone on site, it needs to be addressed.

A foreseeable hazard would include:

• Wetfloors
• Broken handrails
• Exposed wires

All of the above could potentially injure those in your workplace. These issues can be improved with the use of signs making visitors aware of the potential harm that it could cause.

Business managers can be seen as liable if they have taken sufficient precautions and measures to solve the problem or warn others of the problem. However, this does not mean that no accidents will happen because a wet floor sign was used. These signs can be ignored, many times due to them being commonplace within a workplace.

4. Reduce Risks

Although they do not necessarily stop slips and trips from happening, you are trying your hardest to prevent and reduce the risks of injuries. 

This is important as slips and trips are one of the most common accidents to occur within the workplace. Working to prevent this as much as possible, through the use of signs, therefore can help to reduce these risks. 

Many employers have had to pay large lawsuits to employees following injuries from a workplace accident. Be part of their solution and work to make your workplace a safe environment. Accidents will still happen, but reducing this allows for you and your workers to be happy.

Can You Sue For No Wet Floor Sign?

Yes – you can sue for no wet floor signs. However, it would be enacted as accident due to someone’s negligence. Wet floor signs do not stop accidents from happening but act as a caution to others. Some may go ignored and an accident may take place. A lawsuit can be made if a slip due to a wet floor happened and there was no wet floor sign. 

This is especially relevant if this happened in a location that are public, such as supermarkets and shops.

Conclusion

Wet floor signs are important and can help to stop preventable injuries from taking place. Through the use of wet floor signs you will be following governmental legislation, as well protecting everyone that enters your workplace.

For more information about what health and safety equipment should be used in the workplace and how to stay safe while at work, visit our MorSafe shop, or contact us at 01686 611 377 or sales@morsafesupplies.com

Written by Luthien, for Morsafe Supplies.