Anti-Slip & Wet Floor Signs: Reducing Slip Hazards on Australian Sites

A wet floor sign is the fastest way to warn someone about a hazard that is about to disappear. Anti-slip tape is the fix that stays after the sign is packed away. Confusing the two, or relying on only one, is how a slip hazard goes half-addressed. This guide covers the AS 1319 format wet floor signs use, where anti-slip tape fits as a different kind of control, and how to decide what a retail foyer, an office or a warehouse actually needs.

What wet floor and anti-slip signs actually are

A wet floor sign is a warning sign that tells people a floor surface is temporarily hazardous, most often because it has just been mopped, waxed, or wet from tracked-in weather. The familiar yellow A-frame board is the standard format: two hinged panels so it stands on its own without a wall or a post, a moulded carry handle, and ribbed feet that grip the floor rather than adding to the hazard.

Slippery-surface signs cover the same warning for a surface that is hazardous by design rather than by accident, a tiled ramp, a metal walkway, an area near a wash-down bay. Both are printed warning signs. Anti-slip tape is a different kind of product entirely, a physical grip surface applied to the floor itself rather than a sign at all, and the distinction matters more than it first looks.

The AS 1319 warning format

Wet floor and slippery-surface signs sit in AS 1319's Warning category: black text and pictograms on a yellow background, inside the equilateral triangle the standard specifies for hazard warnings. Caution is not a current AS 1319 category. The 1994 edition of the standard replaced the older term Caution with Warning, and its own note treats what used to be called a caution sign as the same thing the standard now calls a warning sign. So when someone asks for a caution wet floor sign, the sign they actually need is the WARNING format, which is what this range is built to.

A wet floor sign designed to meet that format carries the WARNING signal word, the WET FLOOR wording, a triangular pictogram of a figure slipping, and whatever operational detail matters on the day, CLEANING IN PROGRESS being the most common. AS 1319 sets the shape, colour and layout. It does not, on its own, decide where a sign needs to go or how many, which is a site decision covered further down.

Signs and tape are not the same control

Not every slip hazard calls for the same response. A wet floor sign is right for a temporary, moving hazard: the ten or twenty minutes after mopping, a spill that has just been cleaned up, weather being tracked in at an entrance. Move it, use it, put it away.

A permanent or recurring hazard, a ramp, a step edge, a loading dock lip, a walkway that is always a bit greasy, is a different problem, and a sign left standing there forever stops working. People stop seeing it. That is where anti-slip tape belongs: a coarse-grit abrasive strip, commonly in a yellow and black hazard-stripe pattern, applied directly to the ramp or step nosing to change the grip of the surface itself. It is a physical control, not a sign, and it does not carry an AS 1319 format because it is not making a printed warning at all. It is fixing the floor.

The two are not competitors. A ramp fitted with anti-slip tape for the permanent hazard can still need a wet floor sign on the day it is hosed down or caught in the rain. Treating tape as a substitute for a sign, or a sign as a substitute for tape, is how one half of the hazard goes unaddressed.

Where each one belongs on site

Where each control belongs depends on the site. A retail foyer or shopfront needs a wet floor sign ready near the mop bucket for the moment the floor is cleaned, the same kind of planning that goes into a store's retail loss-prevention signs near the entrance. An office reception or amenities area is much the same: a spill or a wet entrance after rain is common, and it sits alongside the wider set of office and workplace safety signs a workplace already has in place.

A warehouse changes the picture. Ramps, dock levellers, mezzanine stairs and forklift charging bays are permanent slip risks as much as temporary ones, so anti-slip tape on the fixed edges paired with wet floor signs for spills and wash-downs is the more complete answer, sitting alongside the site's other warehouse warning signs . Browse the wet floor signs range for the portable warning boards, or the anti-slip tape range for the tape itself, in the widths and colours used across ramps, steps and walkways.

Deciding what a hazard actually needs

A short way to decide: if the hazard will be gone in an hour, it needs a sign. If it will still be there next month, it needs tape, or both.

Ask three questions on any site. Is the hazard temporary or permanent? A mop job is temporary; a ramp is permanent. Does the surface itself need to change, or just the warning? A greasy step nosing needs grip added, not just a sign nearby. And is the area high-traffic enough that a sign left standing becomes wallpaper? If people walk past the same wet floor sign every day without registering it, that is a sign it is doing less than the site needs.

Most sites end up running both: anti-slip tape on the fixed hazards that are always there, and a supply of wet floor signs on hand for the ones that come and go with the mop and the weather.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is intended as general guidance only. Slip-hazard signage and anti-slip tape requirements differ by hazard, industry and jurisdiction across Australia, and the Australian Standards referenced here are revised from time to time. Always consult the current standard, your WHS regulator and a qualified safety professional to ensure signage is appropriate for your specific site and circumstances.