The use of smart devices such as phones and tablets are part of our everyday life and are used in most work environments worldwide to increase productivity, efficiency, and communication. In 2020, we worked alongside a major UK construction company to help us understand what impact this was having on hand injuries.

What we found was that hand injuries were increasing and could be directly linked to the use of smart devices. Why? Because their gloves were not touchscreen compatible. 

To enable their touchscreens to work, they must remove their gloves and crucially, they were not putting them back on again before beginning work in areas with high cut and injury risks. This was leading to a significant number of serious hand injuries.