Definition - What does trade name mean?
A trade name is a label applied to a product or service by its manufacturer to give it a distinct identity. Trade names, also called brand names, are traditionally used for marketing, promoting, and selling products and/or services to the public.
With regards to workplace safety, trade names are important because they are often how employees refer to whole groups of products, regardless of the actual brand of the product. For example, workers may call all brands of a specific eyewash by one brand name instead of referring to "eye wash". A company can also name a safety program and employees will likely refer to any safety issue by the program name. Likewise, they may call a commonly abused drug by one specific brand name if it is a prescribed substance rather than the active ingredient. These common usages can turn trade names into nicknames for entire categories of products.
SureHire explains trade name
The workplace also benefits from the use of trade names to foster health and safety programs that employees can identify and relate to. Companies that launch wellness campaigns are more likely to reach their target audience with employees by branding their message, in other words, naming the campaign to make it more accessible and familiar to employees.
For instance, companies that adopt branded health and safety wellness programs to advance a message about health and safety concerns will rally better support. A trade name assigned to health and safety initiatives demonstrates a sense of ownership and value that employees respond to consistently.
In drug testing, many applicants or employees taking prescription drugs may not know the active ingredient or classification of the drug they are taking, knowing only the trade name. As such, there may be considerable misunderstanding over whether or not their prescription medication will show on a drug test or if it needs to be reported to a medical review officer for safety reasons.
Related Terms
- American Society of Safety Engineers
- Fitness to Work
- Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment
- Psychological Safety
- Polysomnography
- Symptoms Surveys
- Canadian Model for Providing a Safe Workplace
- Kinesthesis
- Reasonable Suspicion Testing
- Autotitrating Positive-Airway Pressure
- Work Tolerance
- Mechanoreceptors
