Posted By Ron Impey
Does anyone have as part of their duties the development of health and safety posters?

What are your views on the use of posters in the workplace, both those produced in-house and those avaialable as downloads from the web, to help communicate the health and safety message? Also, what about flowcharts to explain correct procedures, e.g. for reporting accidents and occupational ill-health, working out required provision for first-aid, complying with food safety legislation, etc.

The posters are made available to managers on our company intranet. The list is currently as follows:

Baby Walkers Safety

Bouncy Castles and Home Trampolines Safety

Bullying Posters

Child Burns and Scalds Prevention Posters

Child Poisoning Awareness Posters

Children on Building Sites

Clinical Waste / Contaminated Sharps

Coach Seatbelts

Drug Rape

Electrical Safety

Falls Prevention

Fireworks Safety

First Aid

Food Safety

Fork Lift Truck Safety

Fundraising Safety

Harmful Substances

Ladder and Stepladders

Manual Handling P

Meningitis and Meningococcal Septicaemia

Personal Safety

Preventing Spread of Infection

Protecting Children's Hands

Recreational Activities Safety

RIDDOR

Road Safety

RSI Awareness

Stress Management

Sun Safety

Swimming Pools

TB Awareness

Toy Safety


Work Tools and Equipment Safety


Are there any significant ommissions?

In addition there are of course the statutory posters and notices, sent out physically.

Posted By George Wedgwood
Ron, I think posters can be great, when used properly. There are a few criteria that I believe are important: - the posters must be 'serviced' to prevent employees etc. from seeing the same old image over and over again. The brain becomes numb to such messages and the posters become tatty and disregarded. So have a monthly poster refreshment routine to recycle and move them about - that costs resource! The other aspect is that posters seem to be telling simple messages that should be addressed in induction or training sessions as part of basic competency! i.e. a poster to sell the message of wearing site eyewear at work is great but if the policy is to wear them, why were they not? Don't get me wrong as posters do have a role in the cultural shift but they must not be over used nor left to fade away. If they stay up too long they actually become 'notices' except they are not that robust - e.g. how long would one last in a site mess room!

Your selection seems to fit the bill for rotation and variation but it all takes a lot of time to manage and is it the most important thing to do? I know what my boss would say if I spent time running around attending to posters! So the only way to make these effective is to ensure that the team leaders etc actually take on the responsibility for them and actually want them in their work areas or common areas. Let them drive it and simply set out a concise standard for their management that they can huy into. All you have to do then is buy them and monitor the standard! Regards, George

Posted By Simon Warren
I'm a bit late with this reply, but anyway.

H&S posters are supplemental to policy, procedure and more so in recent years legislation. They are many things;
1. decorative, funny, attention seeking,
2. informative, enlightening, interesting,
3. platform for a watching eye (poster rotation see below),

They are a vital link between the internal factory and the external world !

Ever felt like your were on your own trying to champion a topic.. like housekeeping !

We all have the same problems, and sometimes posters act as a sharing medium, a common cause articulated in a piece of A3.

[3. I agree totally with the concept of poster rotation, its sounds costly but keep a suite of masters, and use copies, (colour if you can), even swap posters between boards in larger companies. Its OK to return a poster to a board after a month or two, you will be surprised. What your actually doing is taking interest in the content of the poster and its reception with your fellow employees. I do it and I continually get comments that posters have moved, dissappeared and re-appear. When I explain why, I get two things;
3a. I know who notices and who doesn't pay any attention,
3b. I get lots of respect, and therefore greater success with the message, as employees know that I am interested in the topic and how its received, and therefore they take an interest as well. You cannot expect employees to value what you do not value yourself].

I liked the comments on H&S members making posters for themsleves....maximum involvement, specific relevancy.... you can't beat it!

Poster on !