Did you know that employers have a duty to ensure surfaces are not slippery? The Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act requires safe access and the General Application Regulations require pedestrian surfaces not to be slippery.

Points to consider in Floor Contamination
Many Health & Safety professionals talk about contamination when talking about floors which can cause slips and falls. The most common contaminants are liquids such as rain coming in through the door, or brought in on feet, with umbrellas, dripping raincoats. but there are many other potential sources and they don’t all happen at the entrance! Let’s look at the list!

• Coffee, tea, milk splashed on the canteen/kitchen/coffee area floor.
• Water spilt around the water fountain.
• Water, tea or coffee spills on the stairs – particularly hazardous.
• Water on the washroom floor, where people just shake their hands rather than drying them.
• Water on the washroom floor, caused by powerful taps.
• Mud or something even more offensive! brought in from outside, creating a hazard.
• Fruit skins such as banana, or even food/fruit residue.
• Soup spills (as we come into Winter).
• Some cleaning products, unsuitable for floor use (can result in very slipping floors).

And I am sure you can come up some more yourself. It is always amazing what people bring into buildings and the hazards they can create inside.

We have written before about entrance mats and most people consider this when thinking about slip management, but many of the above examples are further inside the building and will not be addressed by an entrance mat.

Bigger companies will have cleaners, but where there is a persistent issue or where you have many visitors or workers (people spill things!), a mat can help provide a solution. This is particularly the case for coffee/tea areas, water coolers and washrooms.

Coffee/Tea areas
Not only can we produce a lovely image mat with pictures of coffees, cakes or whatever you would like, but we can produce it in different shapes. A galley shaped coffee area? No problem a coffee runner mat will look perfect.

Water coolers
Our water cooler mat range, looks great around the water cooler. Protects again slips, whilst hiding any floor damage, wear or tear, which may have occurred previously.

Wet washrooms
Wet floors under sink areas look terrible and may create a slip hazard. A runner mat for the length of the basins works really well – spruces up the washroom and prevents slips at the same time.

For more information on any of the above, please contact us at info@underfootdesigns.ie