Top 5 Pieces of Work Safety Gear to Help Keep You Safe

man outting on his safety workwear
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Top 5 Pieces of Work Safety Gear to Help Keep You Safe

Did you injure yourself while at work last year? If so, then you aren’t alone. According to the official Labour Force Survey, over 693,000 people injured themselves while at work in 2020 alone.

While most of these injuries can be considered relatively minor — a cut, a trip, a slip for example — some can also be extremely dangerous, especially for those working in sectors where the risk of injury is far more likely such as the construction industry.

Lucky for us, however, many of these injuries are actually easily avoidable if the best safety practices are followed and work safety gear is worn while on the job.

In this blog, we’ll run through our top five pieces of workwear to help ensure workplace injuries are kept to a minimum.

Safety Harnesses

If you work in construction, then you’ll know many jobs require you to work at a height, which naturally increases your risk of falling and injuring yourself.

Did you know that 8% of non-fatal injuries in the UK were a result of falls from a height? The fatal injuries are even more alarming, however. Of the 142 workers killed in 2020/21, 35 of them were the result of a fall from a height. What’s more, falls are actually the most common fatal accident for workers overall.

Ensuring you have the relevant work safety gear when working from height is therefore paramount in avoiding unnecessary workplace injuries.

One such piece of workwear to aid in this is a safety harness, which helps prevent falling or injury by attaching yourself to an immovable object while working at height. Should the unfortunate happen and you fall, a safety harness ensures that you will be caught before you hit the ground and injure yourself.

Safety Helmets

Construction workers should also take precautions against objects and debris falling from a height onto their heads. Headgear is unfortunately an area that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. In fact, head protection accounts for only 3% of PPE purchases despite accounting for over 20% of injuries.

Fortunately, an easy solution comes in the form of a safety helmet, which, when worn, helps absorb the blow should anything fall onto you from above.

Not all safety helmets are made the same, though, so it’s important you wear one that is suitable for the work you are undertaking. While bump caps offer padded protection against small knocks, you’ll need a standard or industrial safety helmet for pretty much any job in the construction industry.

Hi-Vis Jackets

Perhaps the most recognisable piece of workwear available (and for good reason), hi-vis jackets are vital to help ensure everyone is easily detectable where visibility is poor, such as working in badly-lit locations or simply working at night.

While they don’t provide any light themselves, hi-vis jackets work by reflecting the light that is shined on them thanks to the highly-reflective fluorescent material they are made from.

Usually, hi-vis jackets are available in different colours, but the most common is yellow due to their excellent ability to stand out in a workplace environment. This is due to yellow hi-vis jackets having the highest luminance factor - a measurement of how well a material can reflect light.

Work Gloves

We use our hands to do a lot of our work, so it’s no surprise that they are one of the most common parts of the body to be injured while at work. 23% of workplace injuries in 2019 affected the fingers, thumbs, hand or wrists, with 7,579 injuries to one or more fingers/thumb(s), 4,814 injuries to wrists, and 4,677 injuries to hands!

To prevent any unwanted hand injuries, get yourself at least one pair of work gloves. While most will protect you from cuts, grazes, and friction burns, some work gloves are also designed to help protect you from injuries that are more common in certain industries.

For example, some work gloves offer back of hand protection and vibration dampening padding, which are both perfect when your job involves operating heavy machinery.

Coveralls

Also known as boilersuits, coveralls are an excellent piece of general workwear that helps protect your entire body.

While most offer reflective capabilities similar to those found in hi-vis jackets, coveralls also offer many other features to help reduce the risk of injury. These include being flame retardant, as well as additional padding in the joints to help protect your elbows and knees.

Work safety gear for all

From safety helmets, hi-vis jackets, and plenty inbetween, we stock a wide variety of work safety gear to help keep you safe in your job. Check out our full workwear range or contact us today for more information.

 

27 October 2021