Safety walks show what safety really looks like in day-to-day operations. Safety is not just about instructions, documents and checklists. It is also about what can be seen and what really happens in the working environment. Safety walks are an excellent way to review day-to-day practices and identify both strengths and areas for improvement directly on site. Over the years, our CEO Ari Virtanen has visited numerous industrial and property sites to assess the level of safety. In particular, he has focused on the risks related to ATEX environments. On these rounds, attention is paid not only to technical details, but also to how well safety has been embedded into everyday operations in practice.
In this blog, we compile practical observations from safety walks carried out by Codeax’s experts. These observations help illustrate which issues are often overlooked, and how even simple measures can significantly improve safety.
Why safety walks are necessary
Safety walks are an effective way to ensure that safety is not left at the level of plans and documentation only. They reveal what safety really looks like in everyday work environments: how instructions are followed, what condition structures and systems are in, and whether there are risks that have not yet been identified.
The value of safety walks is not only in the findings themselves, but also in the fact that they enable real-time discussion and learning directly on site. Safety issues can be discussed with employees where the work is actually done. Observations can be made together, and practices or instructions can be clarified when needed. At the same time, safety walks help build a safety culture. They show that safety is monitored, developed and treated as a shared responsibility, not only as an administrative obligation.
Typical shortcomings
Although sites always differ from each other, the same themes often emerge during safety walks. Below are some of the typical findings that come up when facilities are viewed calmly “with an outsider’s eyes”.
Cleanliness, order and clear access routes
The most common shortcomings are related to cleanliness, organisation and the placement of safety equipment. Fire extinguishers and other first-aid fire-fighting equipment are blocked by stored items or missing from their intended locations. In some cases, there is no clearly defined and marked place for them at all. Fire-fighting equipment is of little use if you cannot get to it. Safety walks also pay attention to unnecessary fire loads, especially near electrical devices, machinery and escape routes. Items easily accumulate “temporarily” on shelves, in corridors and around machines. In practice, temporary often becomes permanent. This can critically affect how a fire spreads and how safe evacuation is.
Fire compartments, firestopping and fire doors in practice
Fire compartments often look compliant on paper. Closer inspection, however, reveals differences between documentation and reality. Typical findings include inadequate sealing of fire penetrations, cables and pipes added later without proper fire stopping. Sometimes the actual solutions also do not match what has been approved in the plans. It is also common to see fire doors wedged open in the name of convenience. Doors are kept open to make movement easier, but at the same time the fire compartmentation can lose its effectiveness.
Chemical labelling, storage and safety
During safety walks it is also important to look at how chemicals are used and stored. Shortcomings typically relate to both labelling and practical arrangements. Chemical storage rooms may still display old warning signs for substances that are no longer used there. At the same time, markings for new chemicals can be incomplete or not reflect the actual use of the space. Substances may be stored in the wrong type of room, safety distances are not observed, or different chemicals have been placed together without any clear system. Safety data sheets may be filed away in a binder that nobody uses in practice. The information is then not available where the substances are handled.
Inspections, maintenance and their documentation
On safety walks, two familiar problems often show up: inspections and tests have been partially missed, or they have been carried out but the documentation and overall picture are incomplete. For example, inspections and maintenance of first-aid fire-fighting equipment, civil defence shelters, electrical installations, and earthing and equipotential bonding systems may have been done in part, but information is scattered – or cannot be found at all. When documentation is unclear or missing, it becomes difficult to see what has been inspected and when the last maintenance was performed. It is also hard to tell which issues require urgent action.
Competence, training and agreed procedures
Technical shortcomings are only part of the picture. Through discussions during safety walks, it also becomes visible how well people know their own roles and operating procedures. Not everyone necessarily knows where the nearest fire extinguisher is, which escape route they should use from their workstation, or who should be informed if a hazard or deviation is observed. In many sites, induction training has been held at some point. However, regular refresher training has been neglected, and instructions are scattered in different places. In practice, this means that safety relies on the memory of a few key people, instead of having agreed operating procedures that are familiar to everyone.
How to get more out of safety walks
The value of safety walks comes from turning observations into changes instead of leaving them as a checklist on paper. Results improve when the round has a clear objective, the right people are involved, those who know the everyday work, and concrete follow-up actions are agreed at the end. It is not necessary to check everything at once. A safety walk can focus, for example, on escape safety, chemicals or a specific production area. After the round it should be defined what will be fixed immediately, what will be logged as a maintenance request, and which issues will be taken forward as part of broader development work.
Often, the most effective changes are small but impactful: storage areas are clearly defined and marked so that items do not end up in escape routes, signage and markings are brought up to standard, and inspection documentation as well as instructions are updated to reflect how work is carried out. When safety walks are carried out regularly and the findings lead to real action, they become a truly effective tool for improving safety.
