Using PPE - What's in it for your workers?

According to OSHA’s preliminary 2022 top 10 violated standards list, PPE violations are still an issue for employers, coming in at #9. In an online survey by Kimberly-Clark Professional, 69% of employees believed PPE wasn’t necessary! Similarly, a recent J. J. Keller Center for Market Insights survey revealed 90% of employers sometimes or often have issues with employees following proper PPE protocols.

Clearly, employees aren’t gung-ho about wearing PPE. The reasons are varied, and include improper sizing, comfort, and heat. You can read more about these issues in the October newsletter. So, what’s a dedicated safety professional like you supposed to do to get them into compliance? One way is to personalize safety compliance. For example, explain that by not wearing safety glasses, you run the risk of losing your eyesight and thus not being able to see your child’s first steps. Or by not wearing your hearing protection, you may be unable to hear the birds or the ocean or whatever it may be.

Using PPE can seem simple. Put on safety glasses, wear gloves, use steel-toe shoes, or put in earplugs. The reality is much more complicated than that. Injuries related to PPE often stem from wearing the wrong type of equipment for the task, not wearing the PPE correctly, or not wearing the equipment because it wasn’t clear what you need to do. Besides the usual reasons (comfort or sizing issues) employees don’t wear their PPE, have you considered if your workplace has a culture of not wearing PPE?

Wearing PPE should not be thought of as a priority but rather as a value. A value is something that is constant – unchanging. Priorities can change when things like schedule pressures or lack of productivity arise.

Donning PPE is a value that workers must practice every day, without change. Every workplace faces the challenges of creating a positive safety culture and instilling the safety value into the thinking and behavior of each employee.

Does your workplace have a “Someday Isle?” “Someday Isle” is a mindset that some employees adopt when they don’t want to act and get a task done today, thinking that “someday I’ll” get to it. When it comes to wearing PPE, workers must vote themselves off “Someday Isle” and take action when they see at-risk behaviors in their workplace.

In her experience as a safety professional, J. J. Keller editor Robin Marth relates this story: It was a struggle to get my employees to wear their safety glasses, but I was making progress. It takes time to build rapport with your employees, to get them to understand that you truly have their well-being at heart, and you aren’t requiring them to wear PPE just because. But there were always a few sticklers to the rules that still just didn’t want to wear them.

That’s where management needs to step in, especially upper management. If your employees see them wearing their PPE, it resonates with everyone. Just make sure they are wearing the appropriate PPE for the hazards present. And be prepared; you may have to take management aside and educate (or possibly correct) them on not only their influence on your safety program, but on the health and wellness of each employee that sees them. They are center stage, and can definitely help or hurt your PPE program!