How to Encourage Employees to Always Wear Protective Equipment

In any work environment, the use of personal protection equipment (PPE) is essential to keeping workers safe.

Even if protective gear can’t prevent accidents, it can prevent workers from getting seriously injured if something goes wrong. Unfortunately, some businesses struggle to get their employees to go along with PPE all the time. It’s always in the best interest of employers to have workers wearing the right PPE. But how do you make sure that happens? Let’s look at some of the most effective ways for employers to encourage workers to always wear personal protection equipment.

Educate Employees

One of the best ways to get employees to always wear protective gear is to train them to wear PPE. It’s not always obvious how certain types of protective equipment should be worn or how they should fit. If there is any amount of confusion in this area, employees may not want to wear PPE. The solution to this is to provide PPE training so that employees know exactly how to use the protective equipment they receive.

Explain the Consequences 

In addition to training employees to use PPE, they also need to understand why they need it. Therefore, company leaders should explain what certain types of protective gear does and how it protects employees. Workers need to understand the potential consequences of not wearing their PPE. In other words, explain to them what might happen if there’s an accident and they don’t have the right equipment to protect them.

Make It Fit Comfortably

Perhaps the biggest complaint that employees have with PPE is that it doesn’t fit. If equipment is uncomfortable to wear, workers aren’t going to want to wear it. To be fair, this is sometimes unavoidable. Not every piece of PPE is going to fit comfortably. However, employers can take steps to give workers PPE that’s the right size and going to fit. If employees complain about not being comfortable in their protective gear, take those complaints seriously and try to find a solution.

Have Leaders Set an Example

Often, the best thing to do when it comes to PPE is to lead by example. If managers, supervisors, and other company leaders always wear PPE, other employees have no excuse not to do the same. Even if supervisors aren’t doing the same type of work that puts them at risk of getting hurt, they should still wear PPE just to set the right example for others. This is an example of strong leadership helping to shape good behavior and habits from everyone else. If company leaders wearing PPE encourages everyone else to wear protective gear, it’s worthwhile.

Listen to Complaints

Finally, don’t dismiss employees when they complain about wearing PPE. Instead, listen to their complaints and try to find a solution. Workers don’t like being ordered what to do or told that it’s company policy to wear certain types of protective gear. If an employee isn’t wearing PPE, allow them to explain why they’ve chosen not to do so. More times than not, there will be a legitimate reason why they don’t want to wear PPE. The least you can do is hear them out and understand their perspective. If you listen to them and have a reasonable response, it’ll be easier to see eye-to-eye and find a solution that ends with them wearing PPE.

Use a Proven Safety System

In addition to making sure employees always wear PPE, the best way to keep workers safe is to utilize a proven safety system. That’s why the safety management software from EHS Insight is a perfect fit for most businesses. We have a comprehensive system of monitoring and managing workplace safety that’s proven to reduce accidents and injuries in the workplace.

If your company wants to prioritize the health and safety of employees, contact us any time and we can talk more about how our software can help you accomplish your safety goals.