Safety at PULLMAN is at the heart of our company culture. We have learned that for a safety culture to thrive, employees have to internalize safety and make safety a personal commitment. And nothing is more important and personal than protective headwear.
For the past 60 years, hard hats have been an OSHA requirement and industry standard. Yet there has been little change in the industry’s approach to head protection, and the standard hard hat is much like it was decades ago.
Stories where a fall has led to traumatic head injuries are just too common an occurrence in our industry. In too many of these cases, hard hats have flown off during the fall, hindering the hard hat from providing the protection it was designed to provide.
At PULLMAN, we realized that these catastrophic, life-changing injuries can be prevented through the adoption of a new headwear standard. By using helmets with chinstraps rather than old-fashioned hard hats, we can provide superior protection to our workers and reduce the risk of traumatic head injuries.
For this reason, we are proud to announce our industry-changing Hard Hats to Helmets initiative. This frontline safety effort seeks to change the way we protect our field teams and prevent debilitating and sometimes fatal head injuries on jobsites. We are not only making the transition from hard hats to helmets in our company, but also helping to promote an overall conversion throughout the industry.
Replacing a fundamental piece of equipment can be met with resistance. To make the transition as smooth as possible, we worked for over a year to test a variety of helmets from different manufacturers. Once we identified the Securefit Helmet from 3M as our preferred model, we worked with the manufacturer to adjust the helmet to maximize protection while keeping it ergonomic and comfortable for employees to wear.
Our new helmets go beyond OSHA and ANSI requirements with a chinstrap, a suspension system with 6 points of attachment, foam padding, and additional accessories.
Safety 24/7 is our priority, and we are pleased to lead the industry in ensuring crews leave jobsites at the end of the day in the same condition in which they arrived. We encourage our peers, clients, and owners to make the vital transition to using safety helmets instead of hard hats for enhanced protection during construction. If you would like to learn more about this initiative, please give us a call.
