It’s been nearly five decades since we set up iSB Group with the hope and intention of helping businesses to create safer, happier workplaces – workplaces where people enjoy what they do, feel valued, and do their best work, and where they are respected and rewarded for their contribution towards business goals.
Since our inception in 1975, we’ve seen a lot of changes, both in our workplace and in the logistics sector that we serve. Technology has completely changed the way we all do business; developments in materials and engineering have led to huge innovations in design; and shifting societal attitudes have changed our customers’ ways of thinking and altered their priorities.
Without doubt, workplaces are generally safer today than ever before. But we shouldn’t be complacent, because it’s a sad fact that there are also more dangers out there.
More choice, fewer compromises
Today’s employers benefit from not only keeping their employees safe through their workwear, safety footwear and PPE, but also being able to offer them choices for enhanced comfort and to indulge their personal preferences.
Advances in materials science and fabric technology are making the ‘safety vs comfort’ debate a nonsense – you can have both.
You can have super strong, durable safety shoes that ‘pay back’ more than half the energy you put into each step. You can have workwear that looks good and sets your business apart from everyone else’s. You can help to save the planet through your workwear choices.
Find out more: Read our blog on switching to sustainable workwear and PPE.
You can do all this while saving your business money in the long run.
Quality vs quantity
Unfortunately, though, with more choice also comes more potential to make mistakes.
Safety standards have remained largely constant, but the variance in products meeting those standards has become huge. While some manufacturers are really pushing the envelope in terms of what is possible with materials technology, and making great strides in comfort, safety, durability and sustainability, others are content to achieve the minimum standard required.
This has resulted in a huge mass of products in the marketplace that sit at the lower end of the quality spectrum, which is confusing for customers.
Faced with such a mountain of options, it can be difficult for people to know which to choose, or to understand why reputable providers like us recommend paying a little more than average at the outset for better quality products.
Find out more: Read our guide to choosing good quality workwear.
Discover how to avoid common problems with safety footwear.
White lies and falsehoods
With sustainability high on everyone’s agenda, it has become all too easy for eager buyers to inadvertently fall victim to greenwashing, where products are made out to be more environmentally-friendly than they actually are.
Then there are those that, unfortunately, just set out to deceive, by deliberately fabricating imitation products with the intention of duping unsuspecting buyers into purchasing items that are not what they promise to be.
In the worst scenarios, so-called ‘safety’ items can actually pose a danger in themselves.
Find out more: Read our blog on when safety gloves turn dangerous.
Changing mindsets
As well as the product marketplace in which we operate, recent years have seen huge shifts in the way in which businesses approach health and safety at work. For a start, mental and emotional wellbeing is now also included in the mix, in recognition of the fact that ‘health’ isn’t just a physical quality.
There is also much more awareness of the role that everyone from the top to bottom of a business plays in keeping themselves and others around them safe and healthy.
Businesses that are leading the way in this area are developing true safety cultures, where they go beyond simply listing safety as a company priority (i.e. liable to change and needing to be balanced with short-term benefits) and put it front and centre as a core value running throughout everything they do, and a guiding principle behind every decision made company-wide.
This is encouraging, but we need to bring more employers to the party. As a leading provider of safety workwear and PPE, it is our mission to keep raising the bar of safety and wellbeing. We want to help more businesses to go beyond their minimum safety obligations, and to develop the culture, environment and workwear provision that makes for those safer, happier workplaces where people enjoy their work, do their best, and are respected and valued accordingly.