Electrical Safety – 4 Crucial Steps

Electrical Safety – 4 Critical Steps…

It’s fairly obvious that safety in the workplace – large or small is of paramount importance. This arguably applies to electrical supply safety more than it does to anything else related to your business and the premises you occupy.

Industrial facility or commercial office, large scale, medium or small, you probably view your site as a low risk in terms of electrical supply safety, right? If so, you could be in for a big shock in more ways than one!

In fact, international statistics indicate that electrical supply faults in industrial and commercial premises mean that the workplace is now the #1 place for electric shock accidents.

What is more, electrical supply malfunctions are not limited to heavy industrial and construction environments either. Instead, the risk is very real no matter what size or type of business you have.

Knowing how to identify the electrical supply hazard points is, therefore, the all-important first step.

Identifying potential hazard points can be a complex job, one that only a professional electrical inspection specialist should tackle. Nevertheless, this is not always true.

Instead, there may be recognisable signs that you might have a problem that you and your staff can identify without professional guidance. It will certainly elevate your electrical supply safety levels if you learn what these more obvious signs are.

Be on the lookout for the following as they might indicate that there is a danger of electric shocks in a certain area of your business premises:

• Abraded, split or damaged wiring;
• Extension leads that are overloaded;
• Lights that intermittently flicker;
• Switches that are noticeably warm to the touch;
• A slight smell of burning around any electrical appliance or
• ‘Standard’ office machines (such as computers or printers) that are left on hour after hour…

All or any of these could be indicative of an electrical supply fault. If left, they might lead to your employees being shocked or even – in a worse-case scenario – an electrical fire.

No responsible employer should run the risk of electrical supply malfunctions in this day-and-age, especially as the results could be the total destruction of your daily livelihood!

Fortunately, guarding against such eventualities is relatively simple as long as you practice just a few ‘electrical supply’ steps.

These are 4 electrical supply safety steps that you can action right now:

• Get a qualified electrical engineer to inspect your premises on a regular basis. Having done so, it is absolutely essential that all the work is ‘signed off’ as being safe by the electrical engineer or consultant you engage. This will minimise ‘nasty shock’ levels later!
• It is all well and good that you know what to look for in terms of electrical supply safety on, in and around your premises, but it shouldn’t stop there. Equally importantly, make sure that your staff knows what to look for (and what to do about it) too. They are involved at the ‘sharp end’ of the electrical chain each and every day, so they must know how to recognise potential problems.
• In Malaysia, every electrical tool, machine or appliance must be certified as safe before it leaves the manufacturing plant. In this country, the task of ensuring electrical supply safety is the remit of Sirim. It is therefore imperative that you look for the Sirim ‘mark’ when you buy any electrical goods, irrespective of whether those goods are for your business or your home
• Regular maintenance is also essential because no matter how careful you are, electrical tools and machines do break down. It is also inevitable that safety levels will deteriorate over time. Even if you invest in buying only the best, they still go wrong. Thus, a logical, regular program of maintenance is an absolute requirement.

So, there you have four simple guidelines to minimise or reduce the electrical supply risks that you take in the everyday running of your business.

If there is anything on the list that is not currently part of your normal safety routines, now would be a very good time to upgrade your electrical supply risk-aversion guidelines.

And any time you need electrical safety help or advice, use the form at the top of the page to get in touch…