16 October 2008
Nigel Day

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is called that because it will safeguard your workers from injury and ill health in hazardous situations, once you've taken all reasonable steps to reduce the hazards. But PPE's no use if your employees "forget" to put it on.

You would think self-interest would dictate that anyone given protective gear when undertaking hazardous tasks would be glad to wear it. But plenty of workers don't, putting themselves at risk of injury or even death, and the organisation at risk of prosecution. There's a steady stream of HSE prosecutions triggered by incidents and injuries that involve failure to wear PPE. In April this year, for example, a Midlands quarrying company was fined when a worker sustained severe head injuries after being hit by a
30-kilogramme boulder while not wearing head protection.

Employers' legal duty to provide suitable PPE for their employees comes in the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 2002. Suitable equipment must be provided in situations where workers may be vulnerable to harm, and where it is not possible to eliminate every potential hazard. The equipment may include helmets, gloves, eye protection, hearing protection, breathing apparatus, high-visibility clothing, safety footwear and harnesses.

It's up to individual companies to write their own PPE policies and decide whether and what their employees must wear, based on their risk assessments and analysis of any previous accidents or injuries.

But if you go to all the trouble of working out what type of PPE your workers need, and then invest in gloves or boots or hats that are up to the required standard, it's pretty frustrating to find it left in lockers while workers wander round your premises bareheaded or in trainers.

Since you carry the ultimate legal responsibility for their inaction, the quickest route to 100% use might seem to be simply to make it a disciplinary issue for anyone to be caught without the correct safety gear. It might come to that, but it's often better to try the carrot before the stick.

Wilful neglect

PPE is frequently described by workers as a hindrance, but this feeling can be overcome when it fits them well, is of good quality, is comfortable and does not prevent them from seeing clearly or moving freely. Such PPE can make people more productive, as well as safer.

Take eye protection. Around a quarter of the population wear some kind of corrective lens. But that leaves three-quarters who don't, and if you tell a young person who doesn't wear glasses to wear safety specs, they are unlikely to warm to the idea. And if the products they are issued with don't suit them, are the wrong size or have the wrong lens shape, it's human nature that they won't bother to wear them.

Peer pressure can kick in here. Sometimes a person who wears safety specs can be considered "uncool" until the others realise that, actually, it's a good idea. If safety specs are comfortable and look good, that's half the battle. Providing fashionable and attractive PPE makes people more likely to wear it.

Other reasons given for not wearing PPE include discomfort (it's cumbersome or too hot) or workers believing it's not necessary for the task.

The first step to avoiding these problems is to choose the right equipment at the start. Ask workers and their supervisors about the limitations of any PPE they are expected to use. If the drawbacks in terms of comfort or poor fit or general under-performance are serious enough, it's time to change kit.

Before you do this, or before you pick PPE for any new activity, talk to the workers and their supervisors, show them any products you are thinking of buying, and let them try them on. Ideally, put together a selection of products that will give the workforce a choice. Too often the person who buys the PPE doesn't have to wear it, and makes buying decisions based solely on cost or their own convenience. Even if the equipment conforms to the standards, it may not be right for the wearer.

Choice empowers people, and there is no one-size-fits-all in PPE. If you try to supply the same PPE to all workers, expect a backlash. In eyewear, scaffolders may prefer a flatter lens while banksmen like wrap-around specs as they look better. Plasterers on the other hand prefer amber lenses as they make it easier for them to pick out imperfections.

Patient explanation

Where you are confident workers have the right PPE but some still seem reluctant to wear it, perhaps you are not doing a good enough sales job.

Sometimes all that's needed is to explain the consequences of not using it. It brings the message home to workers if they understand why a PPE policy is in place and the hazards and potential injuries the PPE will protect them from, and if they are shown what might happen if they are not protected.

It's best to start with the threat to the workers themselves. When training younger people, showing them gruesome pictures of injuries and wounds and explaining the possible consequences if they don't wear their protection can focus their minds. For example, an eye injury could affect their watching football on TV. This can help bring it home to them.

In groups of older workers, most will know at least one person who has been injured or has suffered ill health as a result of not wearing proper PPE. It's a good idea to encourage them to bring their own anecdotal experiences to the training sessions and to get them to discuss the consequences of ignoring hazards.

In mixed age groups, older workers can also provide useful encouragement to younger ones. If you are talking about noise protection, for example, there may be a person in the group whose hearing is impaired because they have worked in a noisy environment. A young person may take notice of the older colleague's experience and be more likely to remember their own earplugs or defenders.

You can go on to explain the wider implications. It's not only the injured person who may suffer as a result of not wearing the correct PPE. From an organisational point of view, if someone not wearing the correct PPE is injured, this could lead to prosecution by the regulators, or even the police.

The cost to employers can include large fines and imprisonment and even possible prosecution under the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007. Non-compliance can even affect the company's shareprice, public image and morale.

The next step is to explain to the people who have to wear it how the different types of PPE protect them, and which type is suitable for each particular task. For example, the safety manager would explain the strength of lenses in safety eyewear in terms of impact, or elaborate on why goggles rather than safety spectacles should be worn for grinding.

Suppliers may be able to provide you with videos to demonstrate how equipment is tested, by firing ball bearings at safety spectacles for example. Footwear must be comfortable and fit for purpose, so that it doesn't detract from a worker's productivity.

Workers should be encouraged to complain if their equipment is not fit for purpose, and to take it back if it doesn't seem right, and ask for something
more suitable.

Final sanctions

If the carrot fails, you are left with the stick to wield. Most of the supply and wearing of PPE should be covered by an organisation's mandatory policies, and written into employee's terms and conditions. But it is how you implement the policy that matters.

If safety specialists or line managers talking with conviction to refuseniks doesn't work, they may need to escalate the action to banning the culprits from working on site if they are not wearing the correct equipment. Alternatively you could use a "two strikes and you're out" approach; or the "no PPE, no job" line of attack. The final sanction is always dismissal.

But there is no point in doing all this if there is no commitment from management, including safety officers and senior managers, to back the PPE policy. Management must ensure that it sets a good example, and is prepared to enforce implementation of mandatory PPE policies, for them to be taken seriously. A lot of good work can be undone by a manager bringing a visitor on site (or, worse still, a senior executive from your own company doing a tour) in a collar and tie, rather than a high-visibility jacket, hard hat and safety specs. 

Nigel Day is product technical and training manager at PPE provider Uvex.

Categories:
Management skills, Personal protective equipment (PPE), Article