M.B. Sutherland

The surprising ways that heat can affect your workers’ well-being, and your safety record, and what you can do to help.

Manufacturers are constantly creating new technologies and materials that not only protect your workers, but also offer numerous other benefits.

Although summer is in full swing, it’s never too late to adjust your heat safety program.

The internet is full of outdated, incomplete, and even wrongheaded advice, and the news is full of dire predictions that the world is getting hotter and heat illness is getting more frequent. So what’s a concerned safety manager to do?

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognized employee burnout as an “occupational phenomenon.” They classify burnout as a syndrome stemming from “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

We sat down recently to talk to Dr. Douglas J. Casa, CEO of the University of Connecticut-based Korey Stringer Institute (KSI). The mission of the KSI is to provide research, education, advocacy and consultation to maximize performance, optimize safety and prevent sudden death for the athlete, warfighter and laborer.

We tend to think of impact work gloves as something you see on oil rigs or construction sites, where heavy duty impacts and blows are common. But almost any manufacturing process involves some type of rough work that can bump or bruise workers’ hands.