Personal safety is the basic right of every employee working anywhere in the world. It is not something that we regard as ‘Employee Benefit’. To fulfill this obligation, every business acquires specific personal protection equipment (PPE) as per its requirements. PPE has now become part of every successful organization. Whether you go to an Apple Store or you visit a mining site of Shell, you will find out the safety compliance.
Workplace Injuries and Role of PPE
As per the US Bureau of Statistics, every third workplace injury occurs due to unsafe practices and no use of personal safety equipment. And safety protection is not just about wearing full-body clothing protection, it includes safety glasses, hearing protection, and any additional safety device which protects employees from their workplace dangers.
What is PPE Program?
If you aren’t still serious about personal safety, prepare yourself for a business growth decline. Studies have proved that companies with better PPE preparedness get better performance than others.
A PPE program helps companies to make their employees secure and safe at their workplace. It gives them a feeling of working in a safe environment.
Before You Start Program:
Being the manager/ owner of the company, you must analyze these points before creating your PPE program for employees.
Before drafting any employee protection policy, it’s wiser to collect data from various sources in your organization.
You should perform the following functions to get the requirements of the program.
- Review your workplace hazards.
- Understand OSHA safety standards.
- Get feedback from every employee.
- Review your organizational safety policy.
- Get advice from the safety industry expert.
Your program must:
- Protect your employees from real work hazards.
- Comply with the OSHA workplace health and safety regulations.
- Match with your company’s policies and goals
- Not slow down any employee’s work pace
- Feasible with your company’s technical requirements
Choosing the best PPE provider
Now, you have a better understanding of your key requirements and you are ready to search the market. But still, there are some factors that you need to observe. Choosing the right PPE devices provider will smooth your business services and will enhance your employees’ performance.
To get the right provider for your company, do the following.
- Get opinion from an occupational safety expert.
- Compare the market competitors.
- Analyze your cost estimation.
- Review the features offered by each provider
- Check the comfort of PPE products
- Verify the quality standards of each product as issued by OSHA
- Take a free trial if any company offers.
For each type of personal safety ware, you can choose a separate company. For example, if you need safety eyeglasses for your employees working in the production unit, you may do a formal contract with any of the renowned eyewear companies like Wiley X Glasses, 3M, Oakley, Pyramex, or DeWalt, etc. But remember to choose only that company which is beneficial for you in all aspects.
Using the PPE at the Workplace
After doing a formal agreement with your desired PPE company, you will get the safety products in a few days. But the question arises that should you give this equipment immediately to every employee or not? The answer is No! It’s efficient to give them a pre-briefing or training before handing over these products.
Prior Safety Training to Employees
Without proper training, the use of PPE is not so beneficial. Otherwise, it may disturb your employees’ performance. Train your employees about the importance of personal safety.
Guide them some of the basic safety procedures such as:
- Hazards present in the workplace.
- Features of the safety device they will use.
- Limitation of these devices.
- Conditions when they have to wear this equipment.
- Impact of the safety device on their work performance and health
- The correct way to use the PPE device.
- Physical conditions where this PPE device can be damaged.
- Maintenance of the PPE equipment.
Make sure that every single employee in your organizational hierarchy gets safety training. Rather than giving the same training to every employee, each department’s supervisor should brief his/her team members.
Running the Program Successfully
To get the successful execution of your PPE program requires a continuous eye on it. Maintenance is part of the program.
During the program, executing these functions will help you a lot.
- Inspections of the equipment
Perform regular inspections of the equipment. You can fix a specific time each month for every department. Very employee should be aware of the inspection time so they are available to inspect their devices.
- Monitoring the safety procedures
Through online and manual reporting and monitoring system, make sure that each device is monitored. If any employee does not use the safety equipment, he/she should be immediately warned. Compliance with all safety standards makes the employees and the devices secure.
To conclude, running an effective PPE program is directly guarantor of your business growth.
