Beyond The Yellow Vest - PPE and Enhanced Safety Clothing in 2024

Workplace safety efforts are critical when your goals are to reduce liability exposure and reduce injury-related absenteeism and turnover. Increasing safety requires going beyond providing workers with yellow vests and other equipment that may be outdated.

While yellow vests are essential for visibility, they are only helpful for some jobs. Here are other forms of PPE (personal protective equipment) that are modern musts when performing certain tasks:

Impact-Resistant Gloves

These gloves have extra padding around the fingers, knuckles, and the back of the hand. They are made to reduce the risk of injury from crushing and pinching. Give them to warehouse workers, construction laborers, and others who may have heavy stock accidentally dropped on their hands. They're also good for jobs that involve working near equipment that has pinch points.

Fall Arrest Systems

Also known as fall prevention systems, these devices are critical safety equipment for anyone working high off the ground. They were initially popular among window cleaners and tree trimmers, but now, the construction and roofing industries are catching on. These systems can be easy to set up and prevent falls or slow unplanned descents to safe speeds.

Anti-Fatigue Mats

Retail cashiers have long known the value of having anti-fatigue mats to stand on while at the register. Their cushioning helps prevent leg and foot pain, joint problems, and back pain. They help reduce the fatigue that ordinarily comes from standing or walking all day, too, so they help improve job performance.

Warehouse workers and other employees with "standing" jobs will benefit from adding these mats.

Smart Helmets

The days when a hard hat was really just a hat made of hard material are over. Smart helmets add cameras and augmented reality displays, alarms that warn of detected dangers, real-time data provision, and much more.

Ergonomic Lifting Equipment

People have known for years that prolonged heavy lifting can destroy the back. Hence, efforts to improve lifting aids are ongoing. Now, modern options such as hard exoskeletons go far beyond the basic strap-like lifting brace.

Anti-Slip Footwear

Shoes and boots that help prevent slips on slick surfaces have been mandatory PPE in some industries for years, but the technology hasn't been static. Like with tire treads, the outer soles of shoes and boots have been changed to improve performance. Each manufacturer has its own tread patterns and materials, and users will prefer some over others. Styles are also more varied than in the past.

Noise-Canceling Earmuffs

Gone are the days when workers had to block all sounds to protect their ears. Noise-canceling earmuffs are still somewhat big, but they don't have the weight and bulk of the old-fashioned ones. Even better, the good ones allow desirable sounds like human voices to get through. These are great for workers in machining, airport jobs, dock work, and manufacturing.

People who are used to earmuffs that block all noise are sometimes baffled when they can talk to someone wearing a newer model without the need to shout. Once they try a pair for themselves, they won't want to go back to the hot, heavy, old style of hearing protection.

UV-Protective Safety Clothing

Now that the risks of prolonged UV exposure are known, outdoor workers are using special UV-protective clothing to keep the sun off without the overheating that comes with traditional thick fabrics. These outfits include shirts, pants, hats, and more. This safety clothing often looks like normal outerwear.

Safety Eyewear

The latest trend in safety glasses is the addition of blue light filtering. This blocks the blue light emitted by computer screens, LED lighting, cell phones, and other modem sources. The goal is to reduce eye fatigue and the risk of eye injury. Since the goal of these glasses is to block blue light from regular sources, they often look like regular glasses instead of PPE. Protection comes from coatings applied to lenses by the manufacturers rather than from bulk or weight. Of course, if the glasses or goggles are meant to protect from more threats, their design may be different.

Respiratory Protection

Everyone is now familiar with the N95 mask, but in industry, it is used to protect against dust and other such airborne particles. There are also respirators that block or cancel fumes from paint and other sources or that combine the two protection types in a single unit. The respirator's size, bulkiness, and sealing ability is chosen according to the threat(s) that need to be blocked out. Models vary widely in comfort, so careful research should be done before buying to ensure good compliance by workers.

Going Beyond the Yellow Vest

Minimizing the risk of workers' compensation claims requires a team effort. Along with choosing the best and most usable PPE for workers, companies should have a comprehensive safety program in place. This program should include good training for using and being around dangerous equipment, an emphasis on spotting and responding to unexpected hazards, training on how to administer first aid to an injured person, and more. Of course, it should also emphasize the how and why when it comes to using PPE.

Safety training should be repeated regularly for all employees. Someone who has been a great worker may not seem to need it, but this is exactly who needs a refresher the most. Not many people will remember the details of something they heard 20 years ago! Not only that, best practices change over time, so long-term employees will need to have their knowledge updated.

Alloy Employer Services provides proactive workers' compensation claims management to reduce your costs for this necessary insurance. We also offer help to reduce your risk of claims ever occurring.

To learn more about Alloy's workers' compensation services or our other offerings, just contact us. We'll be glad to work with you to reduce your workers' compensation costs, liability exposure, and injury rates.

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