The human side of industrial safety: PPE, ergonomics, and heat stress trends in manufacturing

“Fit and style drive compliance, therefore there are many new innovative products in the market that cater to the employees’ own personal style,” she says.She pointed to safety footwear as a clear example of this trend. “There are a variety of safety shoes that meet all the regulations in a variety of new silhouettes, including athletic shoes, skates, etc., from trusted shoe brand names like New Balance and Airwalk,” Lake noted.

Smart PPE and wearables gain traction on the plant floor

Alongside traditional PPE innovation, interest in wearable technologies and smart PPE is growing among industrial and maintenance professionals. These products are designed to provide additional insight into worker conditions and movement.

“There is an increasing trend of new product innovation in this segment of the market and adaptation of these products in the workplace,” Lake says. She estimated that smart PPE is about 8–9% of the market.

Wearable solutions are also being used to help address ergonomic risk by monitoring motion in real time, helping to identify unsafe movement and support injury prevention.

Ergonomics expands beyond traditional safety risks

Safety planning has traditionally emphasized hazards such as slips, trips, and falls. However, Lake notes that risk assessments are now expanding to include other physical stressors. “Now it has expanded into other areas such as repetitive motion and duration of time spent on an activity,” she says.

To address these risks, employers are implementing strategies such as task rotation and investing in products designed to reduce strain during repetitive or physically demanding work.

Lake emphasizes that ergonomics plays a broader role in supporting the workforce over time. “Ergonomics protects the body, boosts efficiency, and supports long, healthy careers in the trades,” she says. By reducing cumulative injuries and minimizing physical strain, ergonomics helps workers maintain productivity and wellbeing.

Material handling spotlight: how to reduce overexertion injuries

Ergonomics is key driver of safety improvements in material handling and storage environments, says Chris Lubniewski, director of category management for material handling at Global Industrial. He points to overexertion from bending, twisting, and lifting as a significant source of workplace injuries.

These overexertion injuries can cost companies a lot of money in claims, Lubniewski says, in an environment where reports of worker injuries are on the rise. Some of these risks can be addressed with the use of pallet positioners and lift tables in warehouse and plant settings.

“Pallet positioners or carousels rotate and maintain the proper height of products on a pallet as they are placed or removed by workers, allowing them to operate at waist level and limiting improper or strenuous movements,” Lubniewski explains.

Lift tables provide similar ergonomic benefits by raising and lowering loads using electric or hydraulic power. Some models also offer tilting and rotating capabilities and mobile units, increasing their versatility across the plant floor.

As automation and robotics become more common in warehouses, new safety considerations are emerging, such as the risks related to human–robot interaction, programming failures, and the maintenance of automated systems.

To help manage these concerns, some facilities are using material handling equipment as a physical and operational buffer between workers and robots, Lubniewski says. For example, pallet positioners and lift tables, can be combined with robotics to move, stack, and transport loads autonomously.

“These products can act as a gap between human and robot contact, which can alleviate safety concerns,” he says. He also notes that hybrid automation can serve as a bridge between partial and full automation.

Safety designed around the worker

Safety outcomes are influenced by how well work environments are designed for the people performing the work. From PPE that workers are more likely to wear, to ergonomic tools that reduce strain and heat stress protections that address physiological risk, the human side of safety remains central. Comfort, ergonomics, practical design, and even a brand name or cool silhouette, can improve compliance, reduce injuries, and support long-term workforce health and without separating safety from how work actually gets done.