Making your business premises accessible might seem like a challenge, but avoiding it can be an even bigger one. There’s a lot of information available about making premises accessible, but it’s often vague or hypothetical. You’re likely seeking down-to-earth suggestions that won’t require an immense budget or months of construction work.
As a business owner, you have a million other things to think about, so making your building more accessible can seem even more challenging. When most business owners think about accessibility improvements, they picture months of work, a building site instead of an operational business, and a bill that would fund a small country. It doesn’t have to be like that.
Tackling Vertical Access Challenges
If you have a multi-level building, it can be difficult to make your premises accessible. Building a passenger lift is prohibitively expensive and requires a lot of space. A lot of business owners simply accept that the upper or lower levels of their businesses won’t be accessible to all their customers.
However, many companies are discovering that exploring different platform lift options can provide a practical middle ground between doing nothing and installing a full passenger elevator. These systems can be fitted into existing buildings with surprisingly little disruption, often using stairwells or other spaces that aren’t being used effectively. The installation typically takes days rather than months, which means your business keeps running normally while the work happens.
On top of that, the builders who make these systems understand the practicalities of business use. They’re durable enough to carry equipment, deliveries and customers on top of their more traditional use. A shop floor can make use of one of these systems to move stock around the building while ensuring that all employees have access to all parts of the business.
Doorways and Entrance Improvements
Your entrance is always the first place where customers see the accessibility of your business. Heavy doors, high thresholds, and complicated entryways can all mean the difference between a customer accessing your business or not. Fixing these issues is typically easier than you might imagine.
Helping all your customers access your building is as simple as installing automatic openers for your doors. Parents with prams and disabled customers will all thank you for it, and so will your staff who won’t need to awkwardly carry deliveries into your building while trying to keep a heavy door open.
Taking care of the actual entryway to your business is also important. The most complicated access issues are often caused by one or two small steps rather than a ramp or dip. It might be prohibitively difficult to step up a small height even for customers with minor disabilities. In these cases, either removing the steps or building a clever ramp can negate the issue without looking out of place.
Bigger changes may require planning permission, but temporary and modular ramps don’t need permission in many situations, so you do have some wiggle room if you need to focus on emergency changes.
Bathroom Modifications That Work
Bathrooms are one of those places where many small changes can make a significant difference. Changing one of your existing bathrooms doesn’t usually require massive amounts of building work, merely using a weekend to widen some doors, add some rails, and create a bathroom that everyone can comfortably use without extreme discomfort.
The changes probably won’t look the same in every situation, so think about how customers will actually use the space rather than how to follow an inspector’s rules. Placing the rails in the right place and at the right height will make a bigger difference than the very presence of rails in the bathroom.
Accessible Parking Spaces
Parking spaces can be just as important as spaces inside your business when it comes to accessibility.
Accessible parking spaces should be wider than normal parking spaces and should have a straight flat access route to the entrance of your business without steep gradients and other obstacles to overcome.
Help enhance your customer’s experience with accessible signage inside and outside your building. Accessible signage should be an integral part of your accessibility process.
Signage doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be clear. It also doesn’t have to be expensive. Think about how far away from the entrance your customers will be when reading the signs and ensure they have room to read them while parked and entering the building. Place the signs at various heights and prepare for different reading abilities at different ages.
Make Work Areas Accessible Too
There are many different areas of most businesses that need to be accessible, but in a different way from your entry and customer areas. It’s common sense to ensure that all employees can access work areas, and it’s usually required by law.
Make sure all break rooms, storage areas and offices are made accessible in your building so staff aren’t discriminated against or forced into uncomfortable working patterns.
This doesn’t mean big changes are required. You might need to widen corridors, ensure workstations are different heights, and make sure there’s space between work areas for staff to walk without difficulty.
The best changes sometimes come from simply asking your staff what they actually need to make their jobs easier. Staff will all have different levels of experience in certain areas of your building. There might be certain areas that are complicated or difficult to use because of where everything has been placed over the years.
Moving Forward With Confidence
Making your premises accessible isn’t just a one-time task but an ongoing challenge as your building changes and your customers’ needs change. Concentrate on improving access for customers in one area of your building before expanding your improvements outwards.
Plenty of businesses find that once they make an initial improvement, it’s far easier to see where else they need to make changes, and it stops them from feeling overwhelmed by the task ahead of them.
Don’t wait for the perfect moment or a massive budget before taking any steps to improve accessibility in your building. The earlier you take baby steps to improve accessibility, the more benefit you’ll gain from the changes you make while they’re also likely to be more affordable than attempting to address everything at once.