There is so much research around, indicating that the vast majority of eye injuries are preventable.  So what does this mean for your business?  To me it means, that if we wear eye protection then the vast majority of these eye injuries will be prevented.  Saving not only our eye sight, but also your businesses money in the process.

As this is a widely touted statistic?  Why aren’t more people wearing safety glasses, sunglasses or other protective equipment, and the insistence of eye injuries decreasing?

Much of this is thought to be due to a lack of education.  Many of the professions that require eye protective equipment, such as mining, work in dirty environments.  Which means that the lenses of their safety glasses, frequently get scratched.  Resulting in the safety glasses getting thrown away after only a few wears.  Meaning that the mining company procurement officer, buys cheap safety glasses by the truck load.

These cheaper the safety glasses, tend to not be as comfortable, as the better quality slightly more expensive safety glasses.  Which results in employees being less likely to choose to wear these safety glasses.

My advice to businesses is to not necessarily buy the cheapest safety glasses.  You will save money and improve your staff’s compliance, by buying better quality, more comfortable safety glasses.  Which means saving money and losing staff to sick days in the long run.

Many of our small businesses customers, in the construction and manufacturing arena.  Buy the grey lens safety glasses version safety glasses for their staff and then the polarised version for themselves.  This is very clever, if you ask me.  The staff think that the boss is wearing the same glasses, only the boss know that they have less reflected glare and a more comfortable outlook.

My advice to the health and safety managers, procurement managers is to consider spending a little more initially, to improve compliance.  Possibly saving your business money and staff down time in the long term.  It might be worth talking to your staff and finding out which safety glasses they are buying themselves to wear as they tend to be much more comfortable and stylish.  Improving compliance and keeping your staff happy.