Photo: Shannon Fagan/gettyimages
Planning on decorating at work to celebrate the holidays?
The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights has some best practices you should follow to ensure the festivities stay safe:
- Keep all decorations away from heat or ignition sources.
- Don’t position decorations in front of fire extinguishers, pull stations, fire sprinklers, emergency exits and exit signs.
- Skip the main corridors. Decorations placed in these areas may fall and create tripping hazards.
- Cover only 20% to 50% of each wall.
- Use extension cords for decorative lights but make sure they’re not tripping hazards.
- Turn off powered decorations at the end of each day.
If the decoration plan includes putting up a tree, OCWR says to “select an artificial one and check the recall list found on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission website to ensure that the tree is safe.”
The tree should also be flame-resistant, and any decorations placed on it should be as well. If the tree comes pre-lit, the lights should be certified by a nationally recognized testing lab. Adding lights yourself? “Do not connect more than three strings of incandescent (hot white light emitted by being heated) lights together,” OCWR advises.
Make sure the tree doesn’t block common walkways or exits and keep it away from heat or ignition sources.
McCraren Compliance offers many opportunities in safety training to help circumvent accidents. Please take a moment to visit our calendar of classes to see what we can do to help your safety measures from training to consulting.
Original article published by Safety+Health an NSC publication