For example, if you have a company that uses a lot of chemicals, you will need sections about storage, handling, and transportation. If your company works in manufacturing, you might need sections about heavy machinery, handheld tools, safety goggles, and other items. Recruit the heads of every department to help you compile these lists.
The ISO and similar organizations offer helpful guides about standards for production, food safety, and many other areas of specialization.
Failure to follow these regulations, let alone not having a manual where one is required, may expose companies to lawsuits and in some cases, criminal charges.
If you work in a scientific lab, you will need to make sure that all of your chemicals are properly labeled and kept at the correct temperatures, for example. Your manual should cover all of those protocols. Also cover information about how to transport chemicals to different parts of your building and to different buildings, if applicable.
Include important charts about temperature guidelines and expiration dates. You should also include safety information about using professional-grade equipment like mixers and stoves.
Fire Natural disaster Active shooter Gas leak Power outage
For example, if you are writing a section about making sure that chemicals are kept at the proper temperature, make sure to note that it is the on-duty supervisor’s job to check that every hour.
You could hold a meeting to gather feedback, send out an email, or even set up an anonymous survey for people to submit their responses. Solicit feedback from employees about what they need guidance on. Don’t feel like you need to accept advice from everyone, but it won’t hurt to open this up to all of your employees. Try giving everyone a chance to participate in a survey about what sort of information would be most helpful in the manual.
Laboratory Safety Employee PPE Operating Procedures Cleaning Protocols Emergency Procedures Record Keeping
You could include an appendix in the safety manual that includes documents such as supply logs, cleaning schedules, and repair schedules. You can update these documents annually, or as often as needed.
Standards and guidelines change, so make sure to update your manual each year. You might not have to change anything, but it’s a good idea to look it over to make sure that everything is current.
Use short sentences and short paragraphs with simple words. Write in the active voice.
Explain acronyms. You can either have an introductory section listing all acronyms with their definitions or introduce them in the text with the full term followed by its acronym in parentheses and using the acronym thereafter. Explain symbols. As with acronyms, you can have an introductory section or explain the symbols as they appear throughout the manual.
Use headings and subheadings to introduce topics, identify subtopics, and group text blocks. Place drawings and the text that relates to them on the same page when possible.
Use black text on white paper for the best contrast between text and background. Shaded text boxes may be appropriate for callouts and sidebars as long as there is still sufficient contrast between the text and background.
