Assignment 5

Health and Safety

Safety is extremely important when working within the IT industry. Without all of the safety measures that a company is obliged to take injury could occur.

If injury does occur it could put you out of work for weeks, months or even all together.

These injuries may occur if you spend too much time on the computer e.g. looking at screen to long, back injury, repetitive strain injury etc. 

An injury may also occur if the workplace is crowded with computers, work or even mess.

The safety of you and your workplace is essential when working in the IT industry, as it is in every other business and company as well.

There is many different ways which will help you to avoid injury, and these will be explained within this article.

So read on!

Work Station

Your work station should be as tidy as possible. This will make it a safe environment to work in as nothing will be in danger of being knocked over e.g. glass of water. If some sort of liquid was knocked over it could fall on an electrical current of some sort e.g. plug in the wall? This can cause fire, electrical short etc.

Also if your work station is tidy, it is much easier to find what you’re looking for as nothing will be cluttered.

Posture

Good posture is extremely important when you are working with a computer even if it is only for a short time, let alone 5-6 days a week.

When your have a bad posture you can injure your back, neck and wrests. Any of these injuries can be serious if your day job is working with a computer. They can put you out of work for weeks at a time.

You could have a bad posture by simply sitting wrong on your chair or maybe the chair is not built for working on a comp To avoid these injuries it is

important that you have a Computer Chair.

A good computer chair allows you to change the height what you are sitting at and should also allow you to change the position of backrest.

The backrest should always be as straight as possible as this will help keep your back straight.

The computer chair should also be the right height so that your hands and arms are level with the desk.

Strain

There are many different types of strain injuries that can occur while working on a computer. Two of the most common would be eye and wrist strain.

Eye Strain-

Eye strain can occur whenever you have been looking at the computer screen for to long as the pixels can cause your eyes to work to hard. This can cause irritation to the eyes and may even cause the need for glasses. This can be avoided by having a short break every now and again.

The glare on a computer screen can also cause damage to your eyes.

To avoid this set an appropriate light brightness.

Wrist Strain-

Wrist strain can occur whenever you do not have the right height adjustment on your seat. Without the right height adjustment, you may have to bend your wrists in an awkward way causing damage to the muscle and joint.

This can be avoided by simply making your chair the right height e.g. your arms are sitting on the desk comfortably.

RSI

RSI – Repetitive Strain Injury is another main strain injury which is caused by Repetitive working e.g. working and a computer for hours without taking a break.

If you receive this injury it can put you out of work for weeks due to the slow recovery time of the muscle and joints.

A way to avoid this strain is to take regular breaks.  

Peripherals

When connecting something to your computer e.g. camera, printer etc just to mention a few, there are certain health and safety rules that you must follow. Some of the main rules are listed below.

To begin with, when you are finished using your computer, make sure to turn it off correctly so that it is not transmitting any power. Once you have done this, it is safe to connect any peripherals.

If after you have connected e.g. Printer and wish to test it, remove your hands from any leads or wires. This will help prevent you from getting shocked. This also helps you from damaging your computer as the peripherals will already be connected as the computer is off. This means the computer is already expecting it.

You will have to do this process with all peripherals you wish to connect.