FEATURE
THE OTHER EPIDEMIC
After so much exposure to Covid-19 related messaging over the past 22 months, should facilities managers be wary of another kind of pandemic? Ed Barnes, Product Innovation Manager at Seton, delves into the topic of sign blindness.
Safeguarding staff was a priority for facilities managers long before the Covid-19 pandemic started. However, since March 2020 the importance of investing in the latest health and safety measures, as well as maintaining compliance, has been brought into clear focus - and failing to do so could have catastrophic consequences, ranging from fines, to a mass workforce shortage if an outbreak were to occur.
This has been an ongoing difficulty for those working in sectors that stayed open throughout lockdown. Elsewhere, in June 2021, office staff who had been working from home were invited back into the corporate environment again, causing workplaces to get busier once more. September then marked a tipping point for employers across the country, as the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention scheme came to an end, with around 16% of businesses still having employees on furlough at that stage.
Offices, warehouses and workplaces across the country are subject to a melting pot of factors that make upkeeping health and safety standards even harder to manage. ‘Sign blindness’ is one of them – an industry term which simply means we fail to notice what’s in front of us.
40 | TOMORROW’S FM
Cognitive overload Throughout the pandemic, we’ve all been exposed to new signage, asking us to keep a social distance, wash our hands and wear a face covering in almost every public setting. And this could have a lasting effect.
The human mind can quickly become desensitised to messaging after repeated exposure, despite its ability to interpret abstract symbols, shapes and colours quickly. In other words, people can become ‘blind’ to signage over time. Clear signage is still one of the most effective ways to keep people safe, but it’s important to use it strategically so it retains its impact.
When compiling our recent report into sign blindness, we spoke to psychologist Dr Jennifer Parkin, PhD, BMBS, who explained more about why this happens.
In an interview, she told us: “If we’re focusing on a specific task, we are less likely to notice an unexpected object even if it falls within our gaze – a phenomenon called inattentional blindness.
“Change blindness – whereby if an object or scene that we’re paying attention to changes while we’re looking at it,
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