Hi, 

I am currently writing a safety statement for a facilities management company who manage public buildings. I am struggling with some of the wording that i am using in it. Should i be mentioning the patrons/visitors of the buildings? Or should i just write it from an employee point of view. The work the facilities management company carries out directly affects patron safety. 

Any help would be great, 

Regards

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel

If you are responsible for public buildings the emphasis should be very much on the safety of the public. The public will be at greater risk than employees because they are less familiar with the building’s features and layout; they are less familiar with your company procedure. Often you will have no idea how they might react during an emergency. So put them at the centre of your H&S policies.  

Thanks for your reply. I suppose my query is based around the safety statement part. In my experience these are writted to protect employees. As in towards the H&S at Work legislation. Our procedures are written to protect the public seperately but should the safety statement just highlight the measures we take to protect employees which will in turn protect the public? Its really the wording used I'm getting stuck on. 

Each buildings management plan encorporates H&S. But should the Safety Statement stay employee specific? 

Note that the Health and Safety at Work Act section 3 deals with duties of employers to non-employees, which includes the public. So if you write a policy statement you must include these responsibilities. The policy statement is in part a reminder to your staff to think about how their actions might affect the public. In some organisations the feeling is the public is a nuisance and they wish the might just disappear but in reality they are often the reason for the organisation’s being there and everybody needs to be reminded that they have to take them into account when planning work activities.