Many people have never heard of a retractable badge holder and I’ve found that their first reaction upon hearing the name is “What’s that?”. When I was working as an IT consultant for one of the “big 6” consulting companies many years ago, I had never heard of a retractable badge holder either. But that is probably the time when I could have used it most. In fact most people who work for an organization would be used to the security measures required these days to stop unwanted people from entering their workplace and one of the easier ways of doing this is for the employees to have a magnetic id card that they swipe at the door. This is not too much trouble when the ID card only needs to be swiped at the front door. But when working for a multinational IT company, just about every door you go through requires your id card to be swiped, whether it’s the front door, the elevator and even different sections or departments on the same floor. This can become incredibly frustrating when your id badge is hanging from your belt and you have to unclip it each time you want to enter a door. Then along comes the retractable id badge holder to reduce your stress.

A retractable badge holder is a badge holder that extends and retracts, kind of like the electricity cord in a vacuum cleaner. They are usually round in shape with a small spring-loaded spindle around which a string is wound. This string can be made of either wire or nylon with an attachment to hold the badge at the end. The round badge holder can come with several different attachment methods that allow it to be attached to a belt, tunic or lanyard. Whenever the badge is required, it is simply pulled downwards and the wire unwinds from the badge reel up to a yard away from the body, allowing the user to swipe their card without having to disconnect it from their clothing. The retractable badge holder also often has a range of accessories available to buy that can be attached to the end of the wire in place of the badge holder, allowing it to be used for more than just an id card.

As you can see, this would have been a wonderful gadget for me to own when I was working as a consultant. To be able to attach a retractable badge holder to my belt and whenever I approached a door, to simply be able to pull the badge out to the door to swipe it instead of having to detach it from my belt. The wonderful feature about these is the attachments and badge accessories you can get for the end of the string allow for a multitude of uses for this handy little gadget from security to being a nurse. These include plastic, leather or vinyl badge straps, bulldog clips, alligator clips, badge clips, split ring key rings, swivel hooks, spring hooks and even cell phone strings.

How useful would this be for a seamstress that had the job of creating ladies clothing. One of the problems they face is having to pick up and put down a pair of scissors every few minutes while they are working. The seamstress could attach a retractable badge holder and hang a small pair of scissors from them so that they were in easy reach and even easier use without having to constantly find them on the table, pick them up and put them back down again.

Or how useful would this be for a waiter as he goes from table to table opening bottles of wine. He could simply don a retractable badge holder and instead of the badge attach a small bottle opener that would then be available without having to carry it or be constantly fishing it out of his pocket.

A retractable badge holder forms a type of broach or adornment when being worn so it is important that it suits the environment where it is being used or at least appeals to the person who is wearing it. With this in mind, retractable badge holders can be bought in a huge range of colours whether it is blue, pink, green, white or black, they are all available. They also come in a wide range of patterns or prints. I’ve seen everything from birds, aliens, flowers and jets adorning an retractable badge holder in an attempt to match the badge holder with the personality or likes of the people who are buying them or the company they are working for. Often companies will buy retractable name badge holders at a wholesale discount that have custom printing with the logo of the company and the name of the employee so that they are personalized. This is often the case when employees are going to a convention or conference and need customized name tags or name badges. They may also do this for promotional purposes where they plan to give away the retractable badge holder as a prize or gift.