If you work in or around an environment where risk is a factor, high-visibility workwear is your everyday.
You’re either the hiring manager or the direct supervisor for a team who adheres to a standard of safety. You may even participate in that standard.
Whereas some standards feel like overbearing control measures, the standards for high-vis uniforms comes from an interesting story about a happy accident which in turn fed the needs of war.
Our standards have evolved since those humble beginnings, but they’re there for the same reason they’ve always been: to protect us.
Thankfully, there is no country better to wear high visibility workwear than the United States. We’ll come back to that, but first, a little history…
History of High-vis
The first use of high-visibility clothing took place in Europe.
In 1964, long before florescent made the rounds of dance clubs in the ’80s, the Scottish Region of British Railways tried a safety standard not yet witnessed. They put their track employees in fluorescent orange jackets, called “fireflies.”
The applied technology, called “Day-Glo,” was the invention of Bob and Joe Switzer. They’d created Day-Glo in the 1930’s in California, stumbling across it quite by accident when Bob temporarily lost his vision in an industrial accident. (The irony is thick, eh?)
Bob had to sit in a pitch dark room to recover. To pass the time, Joe entertained him waving fluorescents in the darkness to see if Bob could make them out.
Later, Bob mixed those fluorescents with varnish, creating the first reflective paint.
Day-Glo gained some ground during World War Two when we used it to vector in planes, but it was when the British Railways adopted it that we see the first shreds of a standard come to light.
After employing Day-Glo, train operators reported that they could see track workers from a half mile out. After a round of testing, officials expanded the program to other parts of the line, starting with those where the trains traveled faster than other areas.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Today’s Standards
The American National Standard for High-Visibility Safety Apparel and Headwear (ANSI/ISEA 107-2015) sets the bar.
There are five performance classes outlined for high-vis garments in the United States, classes 1-3, plus the E-class and headwear standard.
The first three classes cover the standards for upper-body, generally increasing your visibility as you move up from one to three. The E class covers the standards for legs, leaving the headwear standard to cover the last uncovered part of the body.
Different jobs will reference 1-3 standards for the safety requirements, with minimum class expectations dictated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Employers may increase those standards, but if they don’t meet them, that could land them in a heap of trouble with OSHA.
Buying High-Vis
Beware the supplier who cannot prove class certification for a garment. At the risk of bragging, All Season’s Uniforms only carries reputable manufacturers, including Made In USA brands.
If you choose to purchase from a supplier other than ASU, we recommend you verify the supply chain for those products, especially if the pricing seems too good to be true. It may be.
The risk to your business isn’t only your bottom line, it’s the very lives of your most important assets.
Fit matters. Keep in mind, high-vis uniforms that fit stay on the bodies of the people required to wear them. They need to fit not only the shape of your team members, they need to fit the scope of the job.
Comfort matters too. Consider if the workwear needs to breathe, as in cases where overheating is an issue. You may also need to consider water or fireproofing.
Set your people up for success. Don’t cut corners on their safety or comfort. Otherwise, you may find yourself fielding uniform gripes.
Best Practices
Know and teach proper laundering to your team. It’s not enough to tell them once, then forget it. They won’t remember.
Improper treatment of workwear can not only affect the appearance of the clothing worn by your employees, it can negatively impact their safety.
Send new team members home on day-one with written instructions. Assume they’ll lose those instructions.
Speak often about proper care of their workwear, even when they’re sick of it. That’s when it’s finally settling in. Then talk about it again.
If you can communicate via email or social media, it’s a good idea to pepper those channels with best practices regarding their workwear. Set reminders in your calendar to send out messaging at least once a month.
Good topics to cover include care, but could extend to best practices like always wearing your high-vis workwear, even when it’s hot, even when you don’t want to. You could also share news stories about uniforms saving lives or blogs from us.
Create a culture of safety and pride regarding safety and you’ll not have to manage this player-by-player.
Why America Wins
In truth, the European and American standards are much the same. The differences come down to when and where those standards must apply.
A good example is our police forces. In the U.S., police do wear high-visibility clothing, but not as a standard, not as often as their European counterparts.
Otherwise, the great thing about high visibility workwear in the United States is straightforward. We have access to great brands like Carhartt, Red Kap, Dickies, Wrangler and more. These are the same brands we wear outside work because they fit and feel right.
High visibility gear might not make our top ten list of clothing choices, but it beats the alternative and when we have to wear it, we get to wear it in style.
For your consideration: Since Day-Glo started in the United States, the next time we update the stars and stripes, wouldn’t it make sense we work in a little high-visibility reflective material to let the world know where the standard of safety started?
It was was in the birthplace of freedom, the United States.
About the Author
Nick Warrick
Nick Warrick is the Sales Manager at All Seasons Uniforms. With over 15 years of experience in the work uniform business, he has worked with hundreds of clients across 20 different industries. Holding bachelor’s degrees in both Business Administration and Information Technology, Nick revamped the company’s online presence, offering its customers a new uniform shopping experience.