ID Badge Reels - The Best Solution For Safety
If you work for a company that requires you to swipe an ID badge to obtain access to various parts of the building, you understand the importance of having that badge easily accessible. You need it within easy reach and visible to others. The solution? Lanyards or badge reels - that's what everyone uses.
Lanyards are more common, but they do present a safety issue for some job positions. They are very loose-fitting, swing around a lot, and can easily catch on something - potentially causing serious injury. They're best suited for personnel with desk jobs or as ID holders for special events like business conferences and expos. If your position requires you to move a lot or go from place to place frequently throughout your day, you need a holder that will be accessible but stay close to your body and not get entangled with your surroundings. That's where badge reels come into play.
We're all familiar with the standard badge reel - a little round fob with an attachment at the end for your badge.
There are lots of different ones out there - you can even get them imprinted with your company name or get some with bling on them. They all serve the purpose - they have a long cable that allows you to extend the badge momentarily to swipe it and then retract safely back into the fob, eliminating the chance that it will get caught on something.
The one thing that bothers me about this type of reel is that nothing protects your badge. After some time, the edges of the badge get damaged, the layers of lamination may start to separate, and the badge starts looking, shall we say, a bit worn. You solve that problem by buying badge holders to put the badge into. (Hopefully your company will purchase those and just give you one because they're usually sold in packs of 25 or 50 and if you have to buy it on your own, what are you going to do with the other 24 or 49?)
A better mousetrap is the badge reel with the protection built into it. Sicurix offers rigid ID badge holders in both a vertical and horizontal orientation.
These badge holders have a hard plastic shell. As you can see in the photo, you just slide your badge into the holder and it is protected on the back, corners and sides - it's just like putting your phone into a protective case. The alligator clip attaches easily to your belt loop - or wherever you'd like to put it. Although it is made from rigid plastic, it's still lightweight. And you can buy just one! This type of badge reel is the best of all worlds. It's a protective holder AND a badge reel all in one. The only thing that it doesn't have that I would like to see is a removable plastic cover for the front of the badge to help protect the bar code area.
Keep yourself safe and secure with a rigid ID badge reel!
Do you have a B2B need that you think is missing a solution? Email your ideas to info@oexusa.com - we're always on the lookout for great ideas and the companies that have them!