Improve Your Staff Wellbeing with an LED lighting installation
Poor lighting can affect mental health in the workplace and is an often-overlooked factor when considering the wellbeing of your workforce. These days it is essential that employers provide a safe and healthy workplace for their staff, but neglecting the quality of the lighting you provide can lead to a range of ill-health effects.
When you consider that your staff spend most of their waking hours in the workplace, it is your responsibility to provide optimal working conditions for your team as an employer. Many people complain of eye strain, headaches, fatigue, stress and anxiety in more high-pressured work environments. A lot of these issues are caused by spending much of the day under artificial lighting.
Unfortunately, many workplaces lack natural daylight and not getting enough sunlight can have an adverse effect on both the body and mind. If you have a building that restricts natural daylight, either out of necessity or because of a poorly designed building, then you have no choice but to rely on artificial lighting to enable your staff to work in safety.
Why workplace lighting is important
In a 2018 report by UK company Staples, where 7,000 office workers were surveyed, 80% of office workers said that having good lighting in their workspace is important to them. Two in five (40%) were having to deal with uncomfortable lighting every day.
Unfortunately, there are no set statutory workplace lighting levels in the UK. There is only legislation mentioned in Regulation 8 of the Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare (WHSW) that states workplace lighting must be “suitable and sufficient” and that, where possible, workplaces are lit by natural light.
But many business properties are not adequately lit by natural daylight, and workers need to rely on artificial lighting to do their job. It is here that employers can do the right thing by having an LED lighting installation to replace old, outdated lighting that is now considered inadequate for a healthy workplace.
LED lightbulbs contain no mercury. Fluorescent bulbs use mercury vapour to heat the filament and produce light. Mercury is a toxic substance and can be very harmful to your health, so it is better not to expose your staff to these risks for hours on end every day.
LED lighting improves productivity
LED lighting not only has a positive effect on your health compared to fluorescent light, but it also helps your workers be more productive in the workplace.
With lighting that runs on AC (alternating currents), it tends to cause a flicker. For workers who need to sit and concentrate for many hours a day, even the most subtle light flicker can cause eye strain and headaches, leading to lower productivity levels.
If your workplace is fitted out with fluorescent lighting, you may find that you can hear a low-level buzzing noise after they have been running for a while. This can cause increased tension and stress in your workers and even cause hearing issues such as tinnitus.
LED lights are completely silent and flicker-free. This is what makes them so beneficial for reducing stresses and strains in the workplace.
Cost-effective and long-lasting
LED lighting is extremely energy efficient so if you want to reduce your business overheads, then having an LED lighting installation makes a lot of economic sense. LED bulbs use a fraction of the power that fluorescent or incandescent light bulbs need to work.
If you are worried that switching to LED lighting in your workplace will be unaffordable, consider that you will need to upgrade your lighting system at some point in the future. LED lighting produces a large amount of light for minimal wattage, so switching now would save you money on your energy bills right away.
These lights also have a longer lifespan than fluorescent and incandescent lightbulbs, so you won’t be spending lots of money constantly replacing broken and spent lightbulbs.
With UK businesses under ever-increasing pressure to reduce their carbon footprint and become more energy-efficient, then switching to LED lighting in the workplace ticks so many boxes. LED light bulbs are four to five times as efficient as standard lighting, so why not upgrade today!
Emergency lighting system design
Did you know that TF Installations can also help you with your workplace emergency lighting? If you are planning to make a move to installing LED lighting in your workplace, you should also have our team check that your emergency lighting is working and fit for its purpose.
Many businesses will move into a new property and inherit the previous occupant’s workplace lighting and emergency lighting systems. However, the emergency lighting may not be adequate to meet the needs of your particular business.
As an employer, you have legal duty to protect your staff and other building occupants from the risk of fire and accidents. This includes ensuring that your emergency lighting is adequate and will work perfectly and enable your building occupants to exit the building in an emergency event safely.
Our friendly and experienced team are here to help you with your emergency lighting system design. We will survey your workplace, plan out and install an effective system for you that will perfectly meet your needs.
We recommend and use Ansell lights and luminaires. Ansell is a market-leading provider of high-quality safety lighting products and is at the forefront of research and design technology in the emergency lighting marketplace. Contact us for our help and more information.
