2017, November

New Canadian storage rack guidelines could help British businesses

From January 2018, new guidelines come into force in Canada that affect the installation and use of steel storage racks.

Though the guidelines are aimed at Canadian businesses, most of them are common sense and could form the basis of best safety practices for British companies. The guidelines can be downloaded here.

Steel racks include warehouse shelving, pallet racking and cantilever racks, all of which are commonly found in...

The majority of office workers spend as much time seated in a chair as they do in bed. Sedentary jobs can be damaging to workers’ health, but if office workers sit in high-quality, ergonomically designed office chairs, health risks can be minimised.

Sitting at a desk and working on a computer is not a natural activity, so workers can suffer from such conditions as back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, poor posture and eye strain. Most of these health problems take a while to develo...

Even if your work processes do not involve much physical labour, if your workers are required to perform any degree of manual lifting and carrying, you need manual handling procedures. Aside from providing the correct lifting equipment, sack trucks, and trolleys, workers need to be trained in how to actually perform the task.

Covering all processes of lifting, pushing or lowering physical objects by hand, manual handling tasks are common within trades such as construction, but any environment ...

When a company experiences a period of rapid growth and runs out of workspace, this can cause a problem. However, it is one that can be solved with a mezzanine floor.

An expanding company needs more space for a variety of uses. New office staff are recruited and need desk space, manufacturing companies need more parts and raw materials, online orders increase and shelf space is needed to store extra stock.

An expanding company is not necessarily a cash-rich company; money is spent on recruitin...