How to Keep Your Safety Equipment Safe

If your business handles safety equipment, you must keep it safe to prevent losing money.

Safety equipment is used by a variety of businesses, from construction companies to hardware stores. Although they’re common, many businesses have a hard time keeping the equipment safe, forcing them to spend money replacing them.

If you don’t keep the equipment safe, employees could damage them, someone could steal them, or someone can get hurt. However, you can do a variety of things to start protecting the equipment and everyone using them.

Read on to learn how to keep your safety equipment safe!

Put Tags On Equipment

When it comes to protecting safety equipment, one of the first things you should do is put tags on them. Putting tags on safety equipment will prevent those that shouldn’t be using them from using them.

If you’d like, you can get tags that have tracking devices so that you know where they are at all times. Should you lose something, you can find out where it is and contact the authorities if you think someone has stolen it.

You can start by putting simple tags on all of your equipment that lets people know they’re dangerous. The tags should be bright enough to stand out from the equipment, making it easy for people to see.

Train Staff to Use Equipment Properly

Staff training is something that many employers overlook when they’re bringing in employees. Without proper training, employees won’t know how to use things like construction safety equipment. In cases like this, your employees could risk damaging the equipment or hurting themselves.

You must ensure that you develop a thorough training program for employees to learn everything they can about your safety equipment. Safety equipment suppliers offer a plethora of products, so you can choose equipment that you think would be best for your employees to use.

Anyone that’s going to be using the equipment should understand how to use it beforehand. No matter what kind of equipment you have, ensure that the employee knows how to operate it. Teach them basic handling procedures so they can safely use the equipment and store it.

For example, if you have a pulley assembly, your employees should know about its parts so that they can use it without any trouble. If they run into a problem with it, they should be able to refer to a guide that will let them make minor repairs to get it working again.

Implementing proper employee training procedures will save you both time and money because you won’t have to worry about replacing equipment. You also won’t need to keep reminding them how to use something because they’ll have things they can refer to when they need assistance.

Implement a Checkout System

Many businesses use a variety of equipment at different times. For example, construction safety equipment may be used by several employees working on different projects. In a situation like this, it can be difficult to keep track of everything unless you have tracking devices.

To avoid this, you can implement a checkout system so that you know who used a piece of equipment last. A checkout system requires employees to mark down when they’ve taken equipment and returned it. If you ever lose something, you can refer to the checkout sheet to see who’s responsible.

This allows you to take the appropriate actions whenever an employee loses or damages something. In many cases, an employee will forget something on a job site, but you’d never know unless you have a checkout system. Rather than replacing it, you can send the employee back to retrieve it.

When using a checkout system, you can do it on the computer or use a piece of paper. However, it’s best to use both so that you have an extra copy in case you lose one.

As soon as an employee takes something out of the storage area, have them write their name, the equipment, and the time or date on a piece of paper. When they put the equipment back, you’ll want them to fill out the time or date at that time.

Store Everything In a Locked Environment

Whether you’re running a safety equipment store or you have the equipment for jobs, you must store everything in a locked environment. Safety equipment is expensive, so you won’t want to risk someone stealing it or misplacing it. Alongside a checkout system, locked storage will ensure you don’t lose anything.

It’s best to use a separate room to store everything. Within that room, you’ll want several locked containers in which you’ll place the equipment. For example, you can have a container dedicated to power tools and another dedicated to small hand tools.

While going through all of these locks may seem like a hassle, it’s the best way to be secure. However, using a locked room will be enough if you don’t have customers regularly coming into the building.

Start Protecting Your Safety Equipment Today

After reading this article, you now understand what you can do to keep your personal safety equipment safe. Safety equipment is a big investment, so start using these strategies as soon as possible to prevent anything from happening to them.

We recommend you start by changing the way you train employees since they’ll be regularly using the equipment. If you don’t have a safe place to store everything, that should be another priority.

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