Your employees contribute much, so ensuring that they work in a safe environment is crucial to running a successful business. While significant steps like installing security equipment and implementing appropriate guidelines do much to uphold workplace safety in industrial settings, something as simple as using the right concrete floor coating can make a considerable difference.
Industrial concrete layers are applied to protect the floor and minimize the need for repairs and maintenance. They can also improve your workers’ safety in different ways:
Improved visibility
Reduced visibility increases the risk of accidents and collisions. Workers might also fail to see small tools, stray wiring, and other objects that can cause them to trip and suffer injuries. Although such problems can be remedied by implementing stricter policies in workplace tidiness, your choice of floor coating will help. Merely using a light-colored layer can brighten your floor and the rest of your industrial facility, enabling your employees to see their surroundings properly and preventing untoward incidents.
Safety lines
You can use differently colored floor coatings to indicate pathways for humans, as well as vehicles in driveways. Coatings can be used to draw lines or floor signage indicating paths and accident-prone areas, such as door swings and danger zones. They can also be used to show features that commonly cause accidents, such as stairs, sudden changes in elevation, and inclines. Apart from improving general safety, these features will also help enhance the efficiency of your facility.
Better traction
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration estimates that slips and falls cause 15 percent of accidental deaths in the general industry. Slippery floors, which are especially common in businesses that use greases and fluids, are a significant contributor to these incidents. You can apply anti-skid or non-slip coatings to your floor to make your workers less prone to slipping, tripping, and falling.
Sanitation
The cleanliness of your facility isn’t just about consumer safety; it’s also a factor in your employees’ health. Raw concrete floors can develop cracks and pores that may harbor fungi, bacteria, and other disease-causing organisms. Even worse, these features make concrete very hard to clean thoroughly. You can choose floor coatings with smooth, even, and easy-to-clean surfaces to fix the problem. Some layers are also formulated with anti-bacterial ingredients to reduce the risk of your workers getting sick.
Fire resistance
It might not seem much, but your floor can help deter the spread of fire. Some coatings in the market have fire and heat-resistant properties can not only slow down fire but also help in controlling it.
In an industrial workplace, floor coatings can serve more than just an aesthetic function. They can contribute to better efficiency and most importantly, make your facility a lot safer for your workers. In choosing the right coating, you’d want to take into account some factors, including the age of the concrete floor, what you do in your facility, the substances it comes into contact with, and how much cleaning it gets within a specific period. These will not only affect the longevity of the coating but also its performance.
