Special Topics in Safety Management

Do Your Signs and Tags Meet OSHA Specs?

OSHA says that its specifications for workplace safety signs and tags apply to the design, application, and use of all signs or symbols intended to indicate and define specific hazards. 

According to OSHA, all workplace safety signs must:

  • Contain sufficient information to be easily understood.
  • Be concise, accurate, and easy to read.
  • Identify the hazard.
  • Explain in a few words how to prevent accidents and injuries.

In addition, all signs should be placed in prominent locations where workers can see them before they face the hazard.

You also need to be sure that your signs don’t themselves constitute a hazard. That’s why OSHA requires safety signs to have rounded or blunt corners and be free of sharp edges, burrs, splinters, or other sharp projections. Also, the ends or heads of bolts or other fastening devices must be located in such a way that they can’t cause injury.


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Tags: Signal Words and the Major Message

Tags should be used to warn of hazardous conditions, equipment, or operations when signs, guarding, or other positive means of protection can’t be used.

All required tags must contain a signal word—for example, "Danger," "Caution," or “Warning”—and a major message indicating the specific hazardous condition or the instruction to be communicated to the employee.

Danger tags should be used only in major hazard situations where an immediate hazard presents a threat of death or serious injury to employees.

Caution tags should be used only in situations where a nonimmediate or potential hazard or unsafe practice presents a lesser threat of employee injury.

Warning tags may be used to represent a hazard level between Caution and Danger.

Here are some other OSHA requirements for accident-prevention tags:

  • The signal word must be readable at a minimum distance of 5 feet or such greater distance as warranted by the hazard.
  • The major message should be presented in either pictographs, written text, or both.
  • Both the signal word and the major message must be understandable to all employees who may be exposed to the identified hazard.
  • Tags should be affixed as close as safely possible to their respective hazards by a positive means such as string, wire, or adhesive that prevents their loss or unintentional removal.
  • Tags should not be removed until such time as the identified hazard is eliminated or the hazardous operation is completed.

We challenge you to NOT find a safety meeting you need, already prewritten, in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library. Take up our challenge at no cost or risk.


Need a Meeting on Signs and Tags?

BLR’s Safety Meetings Library provides the perfect materials for conducting frequent and engaging training on any workplace safety or health topic, including color coding and signs and tags. This cost-effective resource provides no fewer than seven separate safety meetings on the topic, as well as supporting handouts, quizzes, posters, and safety slogans.

All told, the CD provides you with more than 400 ready-to-train meetings on more than 100 key safety topics—a shrewd investment in this time of tight safety budgets. In addition to the meetings’ supplemental quizzes and handouts, you also get relevant regulations (OSHA’s 29 CFR), a listing of the most common safety violations cited by OSHA, and case studies of actual OSHA cases and their outcomes.

Safety Meetings Library lets you choose from a variety of training approaches, including:

  • Mandatory—Sessions that are OSHA-required
  • Comprehensive—Sessions with broadest coverage of a topic
  • 7-Minute—Short, simple, targeted sessions to fit tight schedules
  • Initial—A session used as introductory training on a topic
  • Refresher—Sessions that follow up on or reinforce previous training
  • Tool Box Talk—More informal reinforcement of a topic
  • PowerPoint®—Graphic presentations for comprehensive initial or refresher training
  • Hands-on—A session with training activities
  • Spanish—Including Spanish language handouts and quizzes coordinated with English sessions

You can get a preview of the program by using the links below. But for the best look, we suggest a no-cost, no-obligation trial. Just let us know and we’ll arrange it for you.

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