Why are safety tags important on-site?
Safety tags are a vital part of any construction-based job. Safety must be seen as an absolute number one priority on any site, and all precautions must be taken when looking at how a construction site must be set out.
Firstly, we must ask why safety and scaffold tags are essential to the construction industry. In short, the function of a safety tag is to remind or make employees aware of safe and unsafe areas of the site and equipment. This ensures they are careful and remain aware at all times. Safety tags can be utilised for all aspects of the site, being used to tag equipment, scaffolds or even unsafe areas of the site to keep awareness levels high and maintain a certain level of safety within the working environment.
The most important function of safety signs is to remind employees at critical/important junctures to be careful and remain aware. Safety signs can be installed anywhere and can contain any message that your business requires to keep your employees as safe as possible within the workplace.
Whether it is scaffolding, ladders, or just general equipment, having different aspects of the site tagged and labelled could be the difference between a safe workplace and injuries occurring.
Here at TagTec, we have a wide variety of generic tags for most equipment and industries, but we understand that sometimes that just isn’t what is needed. In specific industries and tasks, very specific information is required on these tags and bespoke tags are the best option for this.
Bespoke tags offer the opportunity to fully customise your safety tags to suit your business safety requirements. However, you should still be aware that as the tag specialists, we advise that particular pieces of information remain on even bespoke tags, as some information is necessary to have on your tags, regardless of the industry and safety requirements.
This piece will discuss the information that we believe you should keep on your tags and why this information must stay in place.
What information does a Bespoke Tag need?
1. Date and Time
Ahead of any other information you have on your bespoke tags, having the date and time that the tag was written out or that a piece of equipment was inspected is critical information to have on your tags.
When working on a site, wear and tear can weaken scaffolds. Having a date on your safety tags will inform workers when a scaffold was last checked, and if it is due to be checked again in the immediate future. Date and time are always required on inspection tags as they contribute to allowing workers on-site to gain as much knowledge as possible from the tag alone.
2. Name of inspector
On a site, as well as with safety protocols in all workplaces, accountability is key. Identifying the individual who has inspected a particular piece of equipment, scaffold,
or area of the working environment could be crucial should any accidents occur.
This is important as it not only gives an individual to question regarding any safety inspections but also provides peace of mind that the inspection has been carried out by a reliable source, meaning the inspections have been carried out to a high quality.
3. Signature
Just as it is important when signing off certain parts of a job, it is just as important as having a dater shown on your safety tags, to have a signature of the inspector showing also. Having the name of an inspector is always needed on a safety or inspection tag, but having a signature in place on the tag shows to workers and site visitors alike that the inspection has actually been carried out.
Without a signature on your inspection tags, confusion can become rife and knowing what areas, equipment, and scaffolds are actually safe can become an increasingly difficult task.
4. Notes
A notes section adds an extra dimension to your tags, giving more depth and detail to what is already there on the tag. Having a notes section allows for information to be added that is maybe not accounted for with the closed question areas on the tag.
For example, if there was something that an inspector felt workers needed to be aware of with a particular piece of equipment or a specific scaffold, this could be written in the notes and be accessible at a moment's notice to anyone that may be using that specific tool or area.
4. Procedural steps
As with any inspection, a checklist must be followed and completed before the inspection can be deemed a success. For this reason, having individual criteria ticked off on a tag is a fantastic idea.
This gives a thorough review of what exactly has been checked throughout the inspection process but also provides peace of mind to workers that each individual criteria for a safe inspection has been met, giving a clearer image of the task at hand and if there are any limitations to what can be done.
Next Steps
If you’re looking into using bespoke safety and scaffold tags for your site, take these areas to include into consideration and make sure you do not leave any crucial information out when you are creating your tags. Creating your tags without guidance can be a challenging task, so we hope this list has proved useful for you.
If you have any questions regarding what you should include in your bespoke tags, or if there is anything you would like on your tags, but you’re not sure if it will be correct, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at TagTec. Our fantastic team are always on hand and more than happy to help you in any way we can.
