TODAY, businesses that require workers to wear cut-resistant gloves are faced with a dilemma. Greater safety awareness together with regulatory requirements, higher worker's compensation premiums, and other factors are prompting companies to mandate higher levels of protection.
Safety professionals realize that high-dexterity gloves result in increased safety and job performance. Corporate managers know that increased safety reduces costs while increased performance enhances productivity, both of which boost the bottom line.
Editor's note: Some ideas are so smart that you wish you'd thought of them yourself. Reused protective footwear, for example. If you haven't considered the possibility until now, Wayne Elsey, president of Kodiak-Terra USA, Inc. (www.kodiakterra.com) of Portland, Tenn., may make you a believer.
BUYING and wearing appropriate high-visibility apparel--appropriate in the sense that the wearer is conspicuous and highly visible given the task he or she is engaged in--became much easier last fall with the update of the first American National Standard for high-visibility safety apparel, ANSI/ISEA 107-1999. Sept. 15, 2005, was the date the American National Standards Institute approved ANSI/ISEA 107-2004, which was devised by the ISEA High Visibility Products Group with help from employers, material suppliers, testing labs, safety professionals, and others.
UNLIKE the days of long ago, in our modern workplaces the armor of Personal Protective Apparel (PPA) awaits almost any situation from the extreme to the daily grind.
WHAT matters is not how much you wear, but what you wear to stay dry and comfortable while working in hot, wet, or cold conditions. When a workers' body overheats or drastically cools, it makes him or her lose concentration and greatly affects his performance. Wearing the right apparel helps with productivity and safety.
CHOOSING the best chemical protection garment can be complicated. An ideal garment for one situation may be too much or too little protection in different conditions. However, by assessing workplace risks and applying the right evaluation methods, the garment selection process becomes less complicated.
SLIPS and falls are one of the leading causes of workplace injuries in the country. In fact, the National Safety Council reports more than 300,000 injuries occur each year as a result of slips, trips, and falls in the workplace, averaging almost $7,000 per accident in lost compensation and medical costs.
WHEN it comes to a foot protection program, many employers think once their employees lace up a task-approved boot, their program is complete. While these employers might deserve a pat on the back for doing this much to protect their employees' feet, they've really only just begun.
IN many occupations--even outside of hospitals and other health care environments--workers run the risk of being exposed to potentially hazardous bloodborne pathogens and bodily fluids. In fact, it is estimated that approximately 5.6 million workers in the United States are at risk of exposure to bloodborne pathogens.