Businesses Urged to Audit Fire Safety Equipment

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Can your fire exit handle all your employees?

Fire Authorities remind businesses that fire safety is their responsibility

Cambridge and Peterborough is one of a number of fire authorities urging businesses to carry out regular checks – or face the consequences.

Fire authorities across the UK are reminding businesses of their responsibilities under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 to ensure that their properties meet essential safety guidelines in the event of a fire.

This means businesses should perform regular documented audits to ensure the adequacy of fire safety signs, fire detection and suppression equipment, emergency exits and basic emergency procedures.

County and Regional Fire Authorities have a statutory duty to enforce the provisions of the Order, to reduce the risk of fire causing death or serious injury to individuals and to protect property. They conduct fire safety audits of their own, which examine premises and relevant documents to ascertain compliance with the Order.

Businesses need to be prepared for such audits, primarily to minimise the risk to staff, visitors or customers at their premises, but also to avoid possible prosecution for a breach.

As part of the audit process, Fire Officers perform a thorough review of relevant documents and will expect them to be present and up-to-date. These documents might include the fire risk assessment, fire safety policy, evacuation plan, records of fire drills, safety training records, most recent test data for fire extinguishers, alarms, etc and electrical test certificates and PAT records.

The Officers will also perform an inspection to ensure that everything is correct, whatever the records might say. Make sure fire exits are clear and all signage is as it should be, as these are the most common breaches identified during such inspections.

While Fire Safety Audits are carried out routinely everywhere, there are certain factors that might cause the Authorities to focus on particular locations or types of premises. This is a purely risk-based approach and is likely to stem from such factors as public complaints, history of past incidents, change of use or specific requests from interested parties.

Providing practical help and advice is a core part of the Fire Service’s role. By taking full advantage of their services, businesses can mitigate risk to the public and ensure they are operating within the law.

Keeping Your Staff And Customers Safe

Busy pub sceneHealth And Safety Responsibilities For Pub Landlords

Pub employers must deliver excellent health and safety training to safeguard the interests of both their own staff and their customers.

Being a pub landlord is a role that comes with tremendous accountability. Not only do you have the usual ongoing responsibility of looking after the health and safety of your own staff, but you must also take care of your customers. This can be particularly difficult in a pub environment where a large percentage of the people on your premises will be under the influence of alcohol.

Health And Safety Policy

Health and safety in your pub begins with the creation of a solid and clear safety policy. This is actually a legally required document if you have five or more employees working for you, either as full-time, part-time or casual staff.

The policy should offer a clear directive about the way in which your organisation approaches the management of health and safety. The document will usually be divided into three parts which should include: The Safety Policy Statement, Organisation for Safety and the Arrangements for Managing Safety.

Training

Once the document has been created, it is essential that all staff, both existing and new, read through it and are able to understand its importance. Your pub team should be trained and then retrained at regular intervals. As an employer, your job is to monitor the effectiveness of the health and safety training to check that it works well in practice.

Pub Insurance

Unfortunately, accidents do occur in pubs and those who are injured are able to raise a claim. As James Braund, Solicitor with Trethowans LLP explains, “People are often mistaken in thinking that if they have been drinking and suffer an accident which is not their fault they cannot make a claim.” This is not the case and insurance bills are high for landlords as a result.

It is therefore imperative that employers take out a good level of pub insurance cover for their business and pay special attention to their health and safety procedures and training. By doing so, landlords will help to keep insurance premiums at a minimum and will protect the interests of their staff and customers.

Premises Inspection

It is also the responsibility of a pub landlord to conduct regular inspections of the business premises in order to anticipate accident or health issues before they occur. Recent research suggests that slips and trips are more than four times as likely to occur in the food and drink industry in comparison to other industries.

Exit and entrance routes to the pub must be adequately maintained so that customers or staff do not slip or trip onsite. This is particularly important if the floor has recently been mopped or if there are bad weather conditions outside. Weather-related slips are one of the biggest causes of accident claims in pubs and bars, but the simple installation of mats in doorways can minimise the amount of moisture that is brought into the bar area from outside.

Similarly, it is imperative that staff are trained to promptly deal with spilt liquids to reduce the chance of customers falling and injuring themselves.

Running a pub is one of the few businesses where you invite people onto your premises specifically to consume alcohol. This always means that there is higher than usual risk of a member of staff or customer suffering an injury. Be safe.

5 Pitfalls to Avoid when Organizing a Corporate Team Building Day

If you want to know the worst 5 pitfalls you need to avoid when organizing a corporate team building day, then this is the article you need to read from beginning till end. You must avoid these pitfalls in order to make your event successful, and hopefully we are going to show them to you right now. Because we believe that if you avoid them, your corporate team building day will be a real hit!

Your Event Shouldn’t Be Too Physically Demanding:

You should create a corporate team building day that can include all of your employees. Never organize something that only a few can do, like a highly-demanding physical activity. For example, you can organize a nice soccer match between your employees. Soccer is not so demanding, especially if you organize it in a small field. You can also reduce the time of play, so your employees can enjoy it without getting too tired. It’s all a matter of organizing an activity that everyone can truly enjoy.

Plan It Accordingly:

You should plan this day with patience and dedication. If you do it in a rush, then you are likely to obtain very poor results, contrary to what you may have wanted to obtain at the beginning.

You should plan what you are going to organize, the place, the food, etc. This is an activity which is meant to bring an excellent stress relief to your employees. So plan it very well, because they deserve to have this special day.

Don’t Make Big Teams:

The team should be small but not too much. Don’t make teams too big, because this will make coordination way too difficult, and this may damage the main purpose of your activity. You should have 10 persons as the maximum size for a team, something higher than that will bring problems and ruin your team building day activity. 10 persons seems to be the perfect size, because it allows all members to participate, cooperate and act in harmony. So give it a try, try to make your teams with 10 participants each.

Define Goals:

The goals for this day should be defined quite well. You need to define clear goals on what will have to be accomplished on this day, so your employees can understand the purpose of this activity very well.

You need to connect this activity to the real life. Maybe you want to do this to make your employees work better as a team, so state it and let them know that the purpose of the team building is that.

Just Make It Fun:

Just make it fun. Try to make it relaxed, so your employees can enjoy it. This activity is meant to act as a stress relief for you and your workers, so don’t make things complex and just set up a good activity where everyone can participate and pass a good time. The simpler it is, the better for you.

How Much Time do Your Staff Spend Wasting Time at Work

Wasted time is lost money. You need to optimize the time in the office from your employees, and on this article we are going to check how much time you are wasting, and what you can do about it. Because if you optimize your time, you will be able to obtain better results and profits, because the time will be well-invested, and as such, the profits will rise.

The Big Problem:

The problem is that an alarming 89% of employees agree that they lose time in their job. And that’s even scary, because this is an all-time high. Employees nowadays are losing more time than ever before.

From this percentage, about 31% lose around 30 minutes PER DAY. Another 31% lose an HOUR, and then we have a 16% that lose 2 hours daily. Here we can see that our employees are losing quite a lot of time. And there are even more worrying cases, especially when we see that a 2% lose 5 or MORE hours daily! But honestly, that’s pretty insane and we sincerely hope it’s not your case, because losing 5+ hours daily can really give big problems to your business.

How Do They Lose Time?

Most of them lose time using their phone. Calls to friends and sending sms can really waste a lot of time from your employees. And the worst part here is that that time is money for you, so these sms and unexpected calls are doing damage to your business.

Another big group lose time gossiping. This is an epidemic that’s growing. Because as it seems, people are becoming more gossips every time. And this is worrying, because it means that they are prone to losing more time and quickly go from 30 minutes a day to 1 or 2 hours, or maybe who knows… 5 or more hours!

And then we have those who lose time because they check their social media profiles, because of distracting co-workers, checking email, etc. This is how your employees are losing time, and you need to do something about it.

How To Fix The Mess:

You should consider hiring a specialist in systems, so we can block all social media sites, because your employees need to focus on their work rather than checking their best friend’s latest update. This is an investment that will save tons of precious time.

In the case of noise, you can try to improve the work environment. This will reduce stress and distractions, because your employees will be better focused on whatever they are doing.

And finally you should try to train your employees. There are many business training courses that can instruct them on how gossiping can be detrimental for their professional growth. You should also give them training on how to be more productive, on how to avoid distractions and that’s it. Education can give you a great help regarding this topic, because this will instruct them on how to avoid wasting time.

5 Ways to Leave a Bad Impression On Your New Boss

There are many ways by which you can leave a horrible impression on your new boss. Do you want to avoid them? We have located the worst of the worst, and based on that we have established this 5-element listing, so you can learn about them and avoid them. Because these 5 mistakes can leave a very bad impression on your boss, and we all know that it’s never a good thing.

Don’t Dress Correctly:

The way you dress can have a huge effect on how your boss perceives you. If you want to be perceived as a clean, responsible and useful employee, then you should care about your looks. This is more important than you think, because your appearance will always be a part of how people perceive you, and that includes your boss. Always care about your hygiene, make sure you meet the dress code and that your clothes are always fresh and clean.

Inappropriate Vocabulary:

Your boss will also care about the way you speak. If you often use inappropriate vocabulary, then you may want to leave it for your friends, because your boss will see it as a big flaw. We all like to curse every now and then, that’s natural, but never do it in front of your boss, because this will leave a very bad impression and this is the last thing you want.

Your boss needs to see in you a clean, polite and hard-working individual, and the vocabulary you use when you talk to him will have a huge role on this. So take care about your words and try to be as polite as possible.

Being Arrogant:

Being arrogant, just like using inappropriate vocabulary, can really create a very bad impression about yourself. Avoid being arrogant with your boss, you should always be humble and polite. Of course, you need to have your own authority and personality, because just like anyone likes an arrogant person, neither nobody likes someone everybody can step on. You need to make people respect yourself, but don’t take this as an excuse to be an arrogant person.

Over Apologize:

We meant that apologizing for a mistake of yours is ok and is the right thing to do, but over apologizing can destroy your image. You need to hold frame and never over apologize, especially to your boss, because this will speak very bad about yourself.

Being Too Shy:

We all know that talking to your boss directly can be a stressful situation. But you should never be too shy, because this will also leave a bad impression on your boss. You need to look directly on the eyes and have a very nice corporal communication: stand still, don’t put your hands in your pockets and look in the eyes of the person you are talking to; in this case your boss. So remember it, be confident about yourself and don’t be shy, this will ruin your image.