As an employer, it is your responsibility to keep your employees safe. If you have employees working around moving vehicles, in dark/dimly lit spaces, or during the nighttime hours, it’s your responsibility to ensure their safety.
Enhanced-visibility garments outfitted with retro-reflective tape significantly improve your employees' visibility. Are your company uniforms up to par in keeping your team members safe under reduced visibility circumstances?
Understanding the Need for Enhanced Visibility Garments
Enhanced visibility garments are an excellent option for many work environments that do not require ANSI-compliant high-visibility clothing, but where visibility is still needed. Since safety garments come in many different types and classifications, you should consider all of the options.
For companies who are not required to follow ANSI standards, but still want to outfit their employees in safety apparel—garments with retro-reflective material are an excellent option.
There are many different industries where visibility matters, such as:
The Food Processing Industry
In busy (and potentially crowded) docks and warehouses in the food processing environment, enhanced visibility garments can help coworkers and machinery operators easily spot and identify each other. This therefore reduces the risk of accidents and collisions and promotes a safer work environment.
Enhanced visibility garments are especially crucial in areas where employees may move between different workstations, around forklifts while moving ingredients, or loading delivery trucks.
Auto Repair Shops
Auto Mechanics are often positioned near moving vehicles while working under cars or in dimly lit garages or shops. It is recommended that Auto Mechanics, and anybody else who works with or near heavy moving machinery, be outfitted with enhanced visibility garments.
The Warehouse and Transportation Industries
Warehouse employees should be encouraged to wear enhanced visibility shirts so they can be easily seen by forklift operators.
Truck drivers benefit from wearing enhanced visibility shirts as well, allowing them to be seen more easily when outside of their vehicle. We also suggest these garments to increase employee visibility in low-traffic areas, including parking lots, special events, warehouses, shipping docks, or areas closed to public traffic.
Enhancing Visibility on Uniforms: A Closer Look
We’ve discussed the industries in which enhancing the visibility of employees is recommended, but what exactly is meant by “enhanced visibility”?
Garments are considered “enhanced visibility” when they have brightly colored retro-reflective tape strategically placed on the front, back, and sleeves. These reflective elements enhance visibility by reflecting light from external sources, such as headlights or industrial lighting.
Enhanced visibility garments may also be made from highly visible, neon-colored fabric, such as bright yellow or orange.
This helps employees to be more visible in dimly lit or potentially dangerous, but still lower risk, work environments.
H3: The Most Common Types of Enhanced Visibility Garments Include:
- Vests: Sleeveless vests are budget-friendly, easy to take on and off, and comfortable to wear.
- Jackets: An enhanced visibility jacket uses reflective striping to keep workers visible in colder weather when insulated clothing is necessary.
- Industrial Work Shirts: An enhanced visibility industrial work shirt is created with durable yet breathable fabrics intended to withstand the rigors of industrial environments while providing comfort and flexibility during long shifts.
Additional Benefits of Enhanced Visibility Apparel
While some work environments may not require ANSI-compliant high visibility safety apparel, there are still many benefits to enhanced visibility apparel in the workplace.
1. Easily Identify Employees
Implementing a color-coded identification system can serve as a simple visual method to distinguish employees based on their roles and functions.
It also streamlines the process of seeking assistance or locating a supervisor, organizes the roles in the workplace, and allows non-employees or customers to swiftly identify employees if assistance is needed.
This promotes a seamless and efficient interaction process, enhancing customer service and overall satisfaction.
2. Ensure Compliance
Supervisors and employees can quickly recognize when individuals are present in areas where they lack proper certifications or safety gear. This is crucial for preventing accidents and maintaining regulatory compliance standards, which enhances overall workplace safety.
Implementing a color-coded identification system for enhanced visibility apparel offers multiple benefits and advantages, ranging from facilitating structure to improving interactions in public-facing environments. Promoting visibility and clarity contributes to enhanced safety, efficiency, and overall effectiveness within the workplace.
In addition, many enhanced visibility garments and uniforms are designed for easy care and maintenance, with features such as machine washable fabrics and colorfast materials that retain their brightness and visibility over time, doubling down on your investment in your employees’ safety.
Hassle-Free Maintenance for Enhanced-Visibility Garments
Keeping your team's enhanced visibility garments in top shape through regular laundering, inspection, and repair does not have to fall on your shoulders. Regularly inspecting enhanced visibility garments to ensure their quality in safety is important.
However, placing this responsibility squarely on your employees can result in quality deterioration and a progressively unsafe working environment.
Kleen Kraft Services offers regular laundering and inspection of every garment. Imagine this: Your team doesn’t even have to request a repair of their enhanced visibility uniform, because we’ll catch it first. Plus, with our G-Mark garment tracking technology, all deliveries will be on time, complete, and hassle-free.
Keeping your employees safe with enhanced visibility garments doesn’t have to come with the hassle of laundering, inspections, and repairs for you or your team members. Learn more about enhanced visibility garments from a local company that cares about your success and safety.
Contact Kleen Kraft today. We’ll focus on the laundry so you can focus on what you do best.
