From helmets to safety shoes, our protective gear (PPE) shields us from hazards at work place. Most organisations have well defined safety policies and they spend considerable amount of time and money proving quality PPEs to employees however the biggest challenge for safety professionals is to get the users wear their PPEs!!
Safety and comfort often do not go hand in hand. On Indian roads, we frequently see individuals driving cars without seat belts or riding motorbikes without helmets, mainly due to the discomfort of the safety measures. This apathy leads to a lack of compliance which is a major safety concern. The concepts of comfort and wearability are even more important at workplaces as they directly impact productivity which is a clear measure of individual’s performance at work. Therefore the employees often avoid anything that hinders their activities. A general tendency of an individual is to adopt a ‘bare minimum’ protection needed to perform the task without affecting productivity and ignore everything else. Line managers, responsible for ensuring compliance with safety norms, often face the dilemma of balancing safety and productivity. They may prioritise meeting production targets while allowing this compromised safety compliance. This results in the ‘bare minimum’ becoming the accepted performance criterion for most PPEs. While this approach may seem cost-effective and efficient in the short term, it poses significant risks in the long term.
However there are several tasks where the bare minimum is not sufficient. Unfortunately, many organisations do not distinguish between general protection and special requirements unless there is a significant impact on productivity. This lack of differentiation increases risk exposure. Procurement policies often focus on controlling costs by meeting ‘the bare minimum’ requirements, satisfying KPIs without considering whether the PPE will be used effectively or its durability. This short-sighted approach overlooks the long-term consequences and defeats the purpose.
A common example of this phenomenon is experienced in case of safety eyewear. Many production sites recognise Safety Eyewear as one of the mandatory PPEs. Any one entering these sites need to wear a safety eyewear along with other PPEs to protect themselves from flying particles and/or liquid splashes and/or harmful lights. It is not difficult to imagine that if we are to work wearing anything on our eyes then it should be something that allows us to see clearly in order to perform our tasks efficiently. That’s very basic isn’t it?!, but quite often this basic need is not fulfilled by the eye protection being used. It’s not uncommon to find individuals entering the work site with their eyewear but they prefer keeping it in their pockets or push it up on their head primarily because they can’t see clearly wearing the safety eyewear. This is a big concern and such individuals are putting themselves at a very high risk of an eye injury and loss of eyesight not because they don’t want to wear the eye protection but their eyewear is simply not offering clear vision.
Decision makers need to carefully examine the causes leading to a situation where a brand new eyewear, which has typically met the bare minimum criterion during procurement scrutiny, quickly moves away from being in front of our eyes to our pockets. This issue is not only about increased risk for the wearer but also about hidden costs for the organisation. Frequent procurement of PPE due to inadequate initial quality results in higher overall expenditure and increased recycling costs. These hidden costs far outweigh the savings from procuring PPE that just meets the ‘bare minimum’ compliance.
In conclusion, while providing quality PPE is essential, ensuring its consistent use is even more critical. Organizations must go beyond the bare minimum and consider comfort and usability to enhance compliance. In the next part of this blog we will understand the how improved awareness of the safety standards can significantly improve the compliance and negate the wearability challenge to a large extent.
