Safety instructions for the workplace
Workplace accidents can be avoided by taking appropriate precautions. To protect your employees and guarantee them a safe working environment, clear safety instructions adapted to your activity must be made available to them. Find out in this article what your legal obligations are as an employer, and how to put in place effective safety instructions.
Posting safety instructions: a requirement of the French Labor Code
The purpose of company safety instructions is to inform all employees of what to do in the event of an accident or hazardous situation. Everyone needs to know exactly what to do, in what context, how to sound the alarm and how to evacuate the premises safely. Safety instructions are therefore an integral part of occupational risk prevention measures.
The French Labour Code requires that safety instructions be posted in the following companies:
- structures with more than 50 employees ;
- premises housing flammable products or materials, whatever the size of the company's workforce.
In all other establishments, signs must be posted to ensure the evacuation of personnel (and the public). Depending on the nature of your business or building, you may be subject to additional legal requirements. This is particularly the case for establishments open to the public (ERP) or high-rise buildings (IGH), which are subject to very strict fire safety regulations.
The different types of safety instructions
There are different categories of safety instructions, depending on the personnel to whom they are addressed and the nature of the activities concerned:
- General safety instructions apply to your entire facility and to all personnel on site, including temporary workers such as contractors, visitors and temporary staff.
- Special instructions are addressed to specific persons within the company. These may include a guard, the safety officer, or people who have undergone training in
- Special instructions apply to specific premises (e.g. storage, laboratory, boiler room) or to work requiring special precautions (e.g. work with hot spots).
Temporary instructions are applied for a limited period of time. They concern occasional situations in the life of the company which could generate an additional risk: maintenance operations, events attended by visitors, renovation work on the premises.
What should general safety instructions contain?
As mentioned above, general safety instructions apply to your entire facility and to all your personnel. They must enable each employee to identify emergency situations, immediately deduce the actions to be taken and ensure their safety (confinement or evacuation).
General safety instructions usually include the following elements:
- a clear, concise title;
- the context in which the instruction applies;
- actions to be taken by anyone discovering a fire : stopping a fire, list of people to notify internally, nearby warning systems, etc;
- the procedure for alerting external emergency services : reminder of emergency numbers, content of the message to be transmitted;
- evacuation or safety procedures ;
- the permanent or temporary label applicable to the
Fire safety instructions are usually accompanied by evacuation plans clearly indicating the location of the reader ("you are here" point), the quickest route to evacuate the premises, the location of the assembly point, or the location of emergency resources adapted to the situation (fire extinguishers, alarm trigger, defibrillator).
How do you draw up effective safety instructions for your company?
The installation of visible signs of appropriate dimensions
The first condition for safety instructions to be effective is to be visible. Choose signs with a simple shape and dimensions that can be read from a distance of several meters. The font and graphics must be legible and leave no room for interpretation.
Position your locker signs in airy, uncluttered areas that are always visible to employees or visitors. Think, for example, of waiting areas for visitors or break rooms for employees.
Evacuation plans must be displayed near staircases or elevators on every level of your building. Special instructions must be posted (at the very least) at the entrance or inside the premises concerned.
Simple, concise rules
Your instructions must provide real support for safety in the workplace. To achieve this, they must never be a source of confusion or interpretation. Give preference to short, easily memorized and extremely precise sentences.
The use of standardized pictograms and/or signs is highly recommended. These illustrations can be a great help to staff with a poor command of the French language.
Remember also to standardize all your instructions for greater clarity in your message: sign size, font, sentence structure, color code and pictograms.
Finally, to avoid any ambiguity, be sure to regularly update all your instructions: names and contact details of managers, layout of premises, nature of activities, etc...
The importance of employee training
The aim of safety instructions is to prevent a risk or save precious time in the event of an incident. They must therefore be assimilated by all personnel, and really leave their mark so that they can react automatically.
Signage alone is insufficient to achieve this objective. Safety rules need to be explained, rehearsed and applied regularly , through practical exercises. For new employees, trainees or outside contractors working on an ad hoc basis, training or a "safety induction" is essential to ensure that the right gestures are adopted as soon as possible.
The employer is responsible for drawing up and updating safety instructions.
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