The hand is one of humankind’s most valuable assets. It distinguishes us from other animals and enables us to perform a variety of specialised activities.
As a result, when our hands are injured, it can have a significant influence on our lives. With a hand injury, simple tasks such as holding a pen, buttoning a blouse, and brushing your teeth become more difficult.
Given the critical nature of hands, protecting employees’ hands must be a primary priority. Proper safety gloves are one of the greatest methods to accomplish this.
Choosing the appropriate gloves can make the difference between losing and retaining a finger. Yet far too frequently, I see businesses approach this critical decision incorrectly.
By learning from these companies’ errors, you may improve your workers’ hand protection. Without further ado, here are some ways to avoid selecting safety gloves.
#1: Continuing to Use Old Gloves
The most difficult aspect of my job is when a consumer is uninterested in my experience, the availability of contemporary fabrics, or the delicate balance of protection, comfort, cost, launderability, and fashion. Rather than that, they want the exact same glove they’ve been using for twenty years, but at a lower price.
Normally, I am unable to express my thoughts, but I will do it here:
Listen, if you’ve been using the same gloves for twenty years, you’re doing your workers a grave disservice. Why? Due to the advancement of gloves, jobs surely changed, and I know for a fact that you could perform a better job safeguarding your employees’ hands.
Would you still carry the same cell phone that you carried twenty years ago? Believe it or not, gloves have advanced at a similar rate.
#2: Choosing Gloves Without Conducting a Hazard Assessment
Without a doubt, employees’ hands must be protected from cuts and abrasions. However, do they also confront a good possibility of having an effect? Chemical exposure on an irregular basis? Even if no such injuries have occurred to date, you must determine if they could occur.
Far too frequently, gloves are chosen only on the basis of previous injuries, without regard for potential dangers. If you wish to protect your workers’ hands to the fullest extent possible, a hazard assessment is a must.
#3: Choosing a Glove Without Conducting Field Trials on Actual Workers
You really need worker feedback, and genuine workers must indicate whether these gloves are suitable for this duty or whether they are too awkward. Actual workers must state, “These gloves are sufficiently comfortable—so yes, these gloves will be worn.”
Without sample trials, you risk amassing hundreds of pairs of gloves that are never worn. Additionally, gloves provide protection only when they are worn.
#4: Allowing Employees to Choose Their Own Gloves Without Oversight
I’ve entered locations where upwards of 100 or 200 distinct types of gloves were being worn. “What’s going on?” I’ll ask the safety manager. You surely only require ten distinct types of gloves, not a hundred, correct?” And the response is, “Well, Jack prefers this brand, and Jill prefers that brand, so we’re going to let everyone select.” We provide them with a catalogue, and they simply specify what they want, and we place the purchase.”
I carefully explain why this not only results in an absurdly excessive expense, but also that individual workers lack the competence to choose their own gloves. They are unaware of the alternatives, are unaware of all the concerns, and will not devote the necessary time to making a decision.
Yes, according to employee input. No, there will be no worker free-for-all.
#5: Reliance on a Distributor Rather than Speaking Directly with Glove Company Experts
We previously conducted a secret shopper test in which we called several large wholesalers and introduced ourselves as a metal-stamping company with 300 people. We’ve recently suffered a significant hand injury and are currently wearing X type of glove—what would you recommend?”
The replies were unfathomable. Typically, distributors inquired as to the type of glove we were wearing and then stated, “Great, I have that glove, but I can sell it to you for a bit less than you’re spending.” Seriously? The same gloves used to injure our people, but of lesser quality? No recommendations for safety upgrades?
Naturally, distributors sell a wide variety of products, from nuts and bolts to compressors and forklift parts. It’s unsurprising that they can’t always provide competent advice on gloves. If you are a business of any size, a reputable glove manufacturer should be happy to come assess your needs, conduct trials, and provide you with the proper equipment.
#6: Maintaining an Eye on Your Legal Liability Rather than Your Employees’ Safety
If your major concern is, “Will this glove keep OSHA off our back and protect us from lawsuits?” you’re on the wrong track. What is the most likely outcome? You will purchase gloves that are excessively large and protective—and hence will not be worn. When someone loses a finger, you may not be sued for failing to provide proper PPE, but if you’d purchased the right type of glove, the guy may have been wearing his gloves the entire time, and his finger may have remained unharmed.
One of the most often asked questions I receive from buying managers is, “What do you have that protects against pretty much everything?”
What is the answer?
The complete glove exists, but you are not interested in it. There are gloves that allow us to hold objects up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, but no one can wear them while hammering in a nail. By increasing puncture resistance, you increase bulk. Making a glove waterproof adds not just bulk, but also pain. The trade-offs are real, and they necessitate professional consultation, field experiments, and worker feedback.
#7: “One Person, One Pair of Gloves” mentality
A construction worker may spend the early morning wielding a jackhammer, which necessitates the use of vibration-resistant gloves. By 10:00 a.m., she may be working with a potentially dangerous chemical such as tar or glue. Later on, she may pick up a smoothing rasp, which will require a completely other type of protection. In an ideal world, that worker would alternate gloves for each activity—with the glove assigned to the task, not the worker. However, both employees and managers frequently think, “That’s the glove for Jane,” rather than “That’s the glove for jackhammering.”
“One task, one pair of gloves” is the proper prescription. The more precise the information, the better.
SAVE A COUPLE OF HANDS
Choosing which gloves to purchase is critical. This is a decision that will have a direct impact on the safety of your employees. A choice that can save fingers. Hands. Livelihoods. Even human lives.
When it comes to safety, no corners can be cut. If you or your business is currently doing one of these seven common errors, now is the moment to correct it. It’s time to upgrade your gloves and reclaim some hands.
