October was National Protect Your Hearing Month—what were you doing to help keep your workers’ ears protected? Hearing loss doesn’t just affect your employees’ abilities on the job—it can also have long-lasting social and psychological effects as well. Therefore, consider implementing a few of these hearing protection tips on your construction site.
Offer plenty of industrial-grade earplugs. When using construction tools like bulldozers or used hydraulic hammers, standard earplugs won’t provide adequate protection to prevent hearing loss. Offer your employees plenty of high-quality, industrial earplugs for use on the construction site.
Sponsor employee hearing tests. Many construction unions require employees to have their hearing tested multiple times throughout the year. If your union does not, sponsoring employee hearing tests a few times a year is an inexpensive way to help catch hearing loss before it starts to significantly affect the employee’s life.
Encourage employees to quit smoking. Smoking damages more than just your lungs—it causes the cells everywhere in the body to suffocate and can also speed up your employees’ hearing loss. Encourage your employees to quit smoking by offering incentives for those who choose to put out their last cigarettes.
Educate employees on the dangers of sticking things into the ear. Noise isn’t the only thing that can damage hearing. Cotton swabs and fingers inserted into the ear canal can puncture the eardrum as well as cause an uncomfortable build-up of wax in the back of the ear. Educate employees on the dangers of ear wax removal tools, and make sure you choose a pair of industrial earplugs that do not go too far into the ear canal.
Hydraulic Breaker Services, LLC wants to help keep you and your employees safer by providing you with the affordable used hydraulic breakers and hammers you need. Give our team a call today at 800-940-8517 to learn more.