Safety Signs and Tags: Tips for Effective Training

OSHA regulates the form and content of many safety signs and tags (29 CFR 1910.145). The regulations tell you what colors, shapes, and wording to use to provide safety information and warnings.

The regulations also require you to train employees to recognize the different kinds of signs and tags so that they can take appropriate action on the basis of the messages contained in these signs and tags.

Signs and tags also play a significant role in your hazard communication program, required by the hazard communication standard (29 CFR 1910.1200). Effective use of signs and tags promotes the right-to-know requirements of the standard. There are very specific requirements for signs and tags for chemical hazards under HazCom.

Training Issues

OSHA requires you to train all employees to recognize the different kinds of safety signs and tags used in your facility and to take proper action on the basis of the message they contain. Your training should therefore include:

• Recognition of safety signs. Employees should be trained to recognize the color coding used for safety signs as well as understand what the warnings written on these signs mean. For example, they should understand the difference between a “DANGER” warning and a “CAUTION” warning, and so forth. And they should be trained to recognize the meaning of any pictographs or symbols used on your signs and tags.

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• Proper use of safety tags. Employees should understand the circumstances under which safety tags must be used to warn of potentially hazardous conditions, equipment, or operations. They should also know which tags to use in different situations and know how to affix tags securely in a way that will make them most visible to other employees. The OSHA regulations say that 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.”
• Removing, blocking, or defacing signs. Employees must be told that they should never remove a safety sign unless they have been specifically instructed to do so. Similarly, they should never block or cover up a sign, even for a few moments. And they should never deface a sign by adding or crossing out words, changing a picture or symbol, or making any other alteration.

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