The Importance of Flame Resistant Uniforms for Your Employees | Ace Uniform Services, Inc.
Do you provide uniforms for your employees and have you been thinking about changing to fire-resistant uniforms?
Do you provide uniforms for your employees and have you been thinking about changing to fire-resistant uniforms? If you work in an industry where you or your employees work with open flames or thermal elements, you already know the ins and outs of fire safety. But what about the uniforms that everyone is wearing? Fire resistant uniforms are made of a material that self-extinguishes when exposed to flame, rather than combusting. Switching to fire-resistant materials for uniforms can help keep you and your employees safe, save you money, and keep you up to industry standards.
When fires or thermal incidents occur in industrial settings, the fire is, surprisingly, not what causes the most damage. Most standard uniforms are not fire resistant, and non-fire resistant cotton or polyester continues to burn even after the heat source is removed. This causes even greater injury than the original fire or thermal event. Using fire resistant materials in uniforms helps to decrease the severity of the injury and gives workers more time to escape from thermal events without serious injury. This is the greatest benefit of providing fire-resistant uniforms: keeping your employees safe from harm.
Many fire-resistant materials are built to be durable and of high quality. So while the upfront costs of buying fire-resistant uniforms may be higher than standard uniforms, they often last longer. This will save you money since you will likely not have to replace the uniforms as frequently. Also, the cost of a burn injury to one or more of your employees has many costs associated with it: lost work time, medical fees, workers' compensation, and increased insurance premiums, to name a few. If these costs can be decreased by providing fire-resistant uniforms, the costs of those uniforms are worth it.
OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) organizations on the state and federal level set standards and requirements for keeping workers safe in various industries. If your industry requires that you provide flame-resistant uniforms to your employees, you could face serious fines and punishments if you don't. If you aren't currently required to provide them, but your employees are at risk of experiencing a thermal event, you may find that new policies require them in the future. In addition to doing the right thing by your employees, you'd also already be meeting those OHSA requirements when they come into effect.
This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2018	at 12:39 pm	. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0	feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.