Simple ways to make your business more accessible

Posted on 13 Sep 2016 by The Manufacturer

Making sure that your business is accessible to all is something that every business owner should make a priority.

Ensuring that your company buildings are laid out in such a way that makes it easy for people with mobility problems, for example, to access it and get to where they need to be with no problems is something that every business owner should do as a necessity.

Not only does making sure that your business is accessible mean that you’re ensuring no member of your target market is left behind, it’s also vital to ensure that you have a good reputation with your customers and don’t end up getting any bad reviews. We’ve listed some of the most essential changes that you should be making to a non-accessible company building.

Lifts

If your business is located in a building which spans over multiple different floors, ensuring that there is a lift available for those who will need to access the higher floors is absolutely essential.

Depending on the type of business that you run, you will most likely need to include lift access to every floor as this means that not only are the various areas of the building accessible to your customers and clients, but also to your staff and visitors, too. Click here for more information on luxury lifts.

Wheelchair Access

Ensuring that your company buildings are accessible to wheelchair users is an absolutely essential job that all business owners should have on their to-do list. Ensuring that your building has a wheelchair ramp at the entrance to all doors, a button which can be pushed in order to easily open doors and lanes and doorways which are wide enough for a wheelchair user to comfortably travel through is absolutely necessary.

This doesn’t only apply to the areas which are used by your customers and clients, either – it’s also important to make sure that staff areas are also fully catered for when it comes to accessibility. Don’t forget about wheelchair access when it comes to thing such as toilets and break rooms, either.

Emergencies

One of the most important parts of ensuring that your company buildings are accessible to all is making sure that it’s possible to easily evacuate the building in the case of an emergency. When putting together an evacuation procedure plan which is essential to complying with current health and safety regulations for a number of businesses, it is important to detail procedures for getting those with limited accessibility out of the building safely.

Ensure that all employees are briefed on and familiar with these procedures. It may be necessary in some cases to install extra safety measures in order to prevent those with limited accessibility from safely exiting the building in the case of an emergency.

Whatever industry your business is part of, making sure that any business buildings are accessible is absolutely vital. Making sure that anybody can easily use your facilities regardless of whether or not they have a disability is essential to good customer and employee relations.