PAD 4393
Hazards in a place of work can often be devastating and lead to massive losses. This is made worse by the fact that some of these hazards are unpreventable, and one can only be well prepared for them. These hazards put a lot at risk, which may include even the loss of the entire workplace. Environment hazards such as hurricanes and tornadoes have even led to not just loss of property, but the loss of lives as well. Despite such life-threatening hazards, some hazards are not as bad but still hold significant consequences if experiences. Some of these have effects on the workforce in an organization, making them less productive and this ends up affecting the organization's operations.
Our organization is a law office at 403 East Park Avenue Tallahassee, FL. The law office comprises of 5 workers, 10 bedrooms, and 6 bathrooms. Being a law office, the office contains shelves of papers and files, as well as electrical equipment such as computers, printers, telephones and much other equipment likely to be found in a typical legal office. Just like any other office or workplace, this law office is also susceptible to hazards, which, depending on their nature and magnitude, may lead to loss of the office, workforce or even loss of clients.
The list of hazards can be endless as this nature of workplace is susceptible to many, though there are notable hazards, which may have a large magnitude of the operations of the legal office. The law office may be affected by hazards such; Physical hazards like fires and wet floors, Psychological hazards such as Noise, and environmental hazards such as room temperature.
House fires in an office are capable of bringing an organization to its knees, especially one of the nature of a law office. This is due to the nature of materials found in the office, which would encourage the fast spread and destruction by the fire. The legal office has shelves filled with files and papers, most of which are wooden shelves. The desks in the office are also wooden, and the chairs are padded plastic chairs. The bedrooms also have wooden beds and other furniture, as well as clothes, sheets and other such materials. All these materials in the legal office make this office very vulnerable in case of a fire. This is because all these materials are capable of catching fires fast and eventually facilitate its spread.
Fire in this office can be caused by factors, most of which can be avoided. However, fires can still occur unprecedented. Some of the factors that can cause fires in this office include; Electrical faults, which may be caused by the numerous electronics in the office. The electrical faults can also be caused by an overload in the electricity supply or an electricity surge in the electrical circuit of the office. Another cause of a fire in the office can be reckless smoking. People in the office, especially clients visiting the office may be tempted to throw cigarettes that are not well put out carelessly. When such get in contact with the papers, they may ignite a fire.
The effects of fires in this office are intense, and thus fire should be prevented at all costs. The documents in this office are of high importance; as some of them include wills, agreements, case files and many other important and confidential documents, whose destruction could have a lot of adverse effects. In an example, the loss of a will by the office through a fire may be disastrous to the affected family and may lead to many other legal battles. The loss of important papers in this office may even lead t the office facing legal suits, as well as many other inconveniences. Many cases may be lost after such a loss, and this may even lead to the loss of many clients, and eventually closure of the business.
The law office has put several measures in place to prevent such catastrophes in future. Some of these include installing fire extinguishers in hallways and common points. To prevent a fire from smoking, the office has put in place ashtrays in offices for careful disposal of un-burnt cigarettes. However, the office lacks strategic fire exits, which may be needed to prevent stampedes in the event of fires. The office also does not have a fire assembly point outside the building, so as to account for the safety of occupants in the event of fires.
Another hazard likely to be encountered in this law office is a physical hazard by the nature of wet floors in the office. Wet floors may be fatal at times if not taken care of and prevented at all times. This office is highly vulnerable to wetness on the floors. One reason is that the office lacks water drains in the floors. The tiled nature of the office floors makes it easy to slide over just a little wetness on the floor, as the tiles tend to get more slippery when wet.
The presence of bathrooms in this office is one main contributor of having wetness on the floors in the office. Another reason to have wet floors in the office is lack of designated cleaners in the office. This makes the workers responsible for cleaning their working spaces. This makes them do the cleaning in a hurry as they hurry to get onto the work activities of the day. This hurry makes the cleaning be of poor quality, and a lot of wetness is left on the floor. The bathrooms also lack doormats, which can absorb water from one's shoes after one use the bathrooms instead of the water being spread to the hallways.
Wet floors can have adverse effects on the operations of the office. Important and confidential papers may get in contact with wet floors in the event one drops them accidentally. This may result in the papers getting distorted and even destroyed; depending on the amount of wetness they get in contact with. Loss or destruction of such documents may have devastating consequences to the office, as a lot of valuable information may be lost. This may even result in lawsuits being filed against the firm, or other devastating disagreements and even worse, loss of cases in courts whose documents have been destroyed. Another effect of having wet floors in the office is the potential injuries it can cause to workers and clients. This may happen when workers and clients slide on the wet floor and get hurt. Such injuries may make the employees unproductive, as they will be recuperating. Such injuries may also make employees immobile, and thus unable to attend work or court cases. The firm may also lose clients or potential clients who may get hurt when they visit the office.
The office lacks measures of preventing such incidences, and this is a real threat t the office. The office lacks a vacuum cleaner, which can be used to clean and suck out the water. The office also needs absorbent doormats for its bathrooms.
Another type of hazard that can affect this office is a psychological hazard by name of noise. Noise can often be a nuisance in a quiet workspace like in an office setting. The location of this office makes it susceptible to various forms of noise pollution around it. This is because it is located along a busy avenue with moderate to heavy traffic throughout the day.
One such source can be cars along the avenue, which is constant hooting, can be a source of noise. Cars parked along the avenue or outside the office also raise burglarproof alarms in the event of touch or other causes, and this also disturbs workers in the office, especially the ones whose cars are parked outside. Another source is the noise caused by sirens. Police cars, ambulances, and fire engines frequent this route, and their blaring sirens can be a great nuisance to the office workers as well as clients. Air conditioning equipment can also be at times a nuisance in matters noise. Poorly maintained fans and other types of air conditioners can often produce annoying sounds due to friction between their parts. This in turn created a great nuisance to the workers. Not only does lack of maintenance cause noise, but well-maintained air conditioning systems can also create a lot of noise. This is in the event they are too many in a room or are being operated at maximum performances, thus overworking them.
The presence of loud and unnecessary noise is a great inconvenience to workers and clients alike. Loud noise minimizes the concentration of workers, as it makes them irritable. This, therefore, compromises the quality of work, which in this case is very sensitive, with the office being a law office. Noise also distorts communication among workers, as well as between workers and clients. This disables efficient sharing of information that may be very vital in the operation of the office. Failure to get full information from clients may cause one to miss very important points in a case and therefore even lose a case.
Environmental hazards are also prone to affect this office. This is mainly in the form of environmental temperatures. The environmental conditions at the location of this office vary greatly during various times of the year. This is characterized by the change in seasons from winter to summer, with spring and autumn in between them. The effect of weather change is huge, as temperatures change from freezing levels in winters to very high temperatures in summer. In this light, workers and clients in this office are prone to be affected by these adverse changes, as they are affected by both high and low temperatures in summer and winter respectively.
The office is likely to feel the impact more greatly, as it has not been well equipped to handle such adverse weather conditions. The office only has windows to allow in cool air during summers, and a few fans to further suppress hot weather. This is often not enough for the magnitude of temperatures during summer is usually very great. The cold season hits worse for this office as it is ill-equipped for this.
High temperatures are often a nuisance for workers and clients, as the excess heat makes them uncomfortable in the office. The office also spends a lot of money in buying cold water and soft drinks to help in keeping the workers cool. The cold weather of winter also has great effects, as workers can even contract sicknesses due to the cold, and thus make them less productive. The office also spends a lot of money in buying coffee for the workers and clients so as to keep them warm.
The office has a plus at having large slide windows which are easy to open and allow a lot of air inside to help at keeping cool. However, the office should invest in having more advanced air conditioning equipment so as to prevent such inconveniences in future seasons.
As seen above, hazards in the place of work can be disastrous and devastating, and extreme care and caution should be used to manage and prevent such hazards from happening. Priority should also be given to the more destructive hazards, but this should not give room to ignore the less destructive ones.
Reference
Dorgham, D. M. (2016). Hazard and Risk Management at the Workplace. International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management , 1466-8297.
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