Ensuring PPE compliance: How workwear rental services protect your team
When it comes to personal protective equipment (PPE) clothing, your responsibility for your team is of utmost importance.
Cutting corners can have significant consequences for PPE. If you get it wrong, not only the welfare and safety of your team but also the legality, legitimacy and longevity of your business are at stake.
In this guide, we’ll highlight the various forms of PPE litigation you need to be aware of, explore the implications of getting it wrong, the correct standards to follow and why workwear rental might be the perfect solution for all your PPE headaches.
What PPE regulation should I be aware of?
Personal protective equipment (PPE) workwear compliance is governed by two notable regulations and standards.
Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 (latest update 2022)
These initial regulations required employers to provide PPE that’s suitable, properly maintained and free of charge for employees working in potentially hazardous environments such as healthcare, construction and food processing.
As a result, the following compliance must be adhered to:
- Assessment: PPE must be assessed before use to ensure it's suitable for the job.
- Maintenance: PPE must be maintained in good condition, including cleaning, disinfecting and repairing.
- Storage: PPE must be stored in a suitable location that protects it from damage and contamination.
- Instructions: Employers must provide employees with instructions and training on how to use the PPE safely.
- Usage: Employees must use the PPE correctly.
- Compatibility: PPE must be compatible with other types of PPE if more than one health and safety risk is present.
- Standards: PPE must conform to appropriate British, European and international standards.
- Availability: PPE must be available free of charge to employees working in potentially hazardous environments.
- Reporting: Employees must report lost or defective PPE to their employer.
As you’d expect, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced the legal expectation for PPE in the workplace, which has tightened significantly since the turn of this decade. Therefore, the latest version of this legislation was updated in 2022.
Notable updates include the requirement that employers provide more extensive and in-depth training on how to actually use the PPE safely (which goes beyond the basic ‘instructions’ line of compliance from the original legislation).
Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
This is a general, overarching piece of workplace legislation that underpins the broader employer-employee workwear relationship.
However, in terms of PPE specifically, it simply reinforces the regulation that states employers cannot charge employees for PPE used only at work — which backs up the ‘availability’ line of compliance within the more tailored Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulation.
What are the consequences of poor PPE?
Supplying inadequate workwear, particularly garments that serve a specific protective purpose like PPE, can have costly implications for your business and your staff.
Staff safety and wellbeing is compromised
It almost goes without saying, but blatant failure to comply with PPE standards automatically risks the health and safety of your workforce.
Poor PPE processes and standards, in general, won’t go unnoticed by your employees. As well as making them feel less safe and less equipped to do their jobs effectively, they’ll also feel less valued, creating a negative (or even toxic) working environment.
Therefore, staff must have complete confidence in your workwear process in terms of supply, laundry and maintenance.
Sanctions and business disruption
If your business fails a health and safety inspection on premises, you could be hit with financial penalties according to the level of non-compliance.
In most cases, this leads to enforced business disruption and even closure, which can be catastrophic for you operationally, especially if you have clients and customers who depend on you for your services.
Again, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, health and safety officials are hotter than ever on PPE breaches and below-par standards. Making sure you have a process in place that keeps you on top of these issues and aligned with the legislation we’ve discussed above is, therefore, imperative.
Negative business image
This is generally a result of the two issues above.
While accidents can be frequent in some industries, injuries and even fatalities related to PPE problems that you as a business are responsible for can have devastating consequences for your company image — especially if they leak out into the public domain through negative press or media coverage.
The same applies to health and safety interventions. If your business has enforced disruption for PPE compliance oversight, this is almost guaranteed to be in the public interest.
How to maintain positive PPE standards
Given the ever-changing nature of health and safety and PPE regulation specifically, this is easier said than done.
However, to start with, there are a couple of key practices to focus on around workwear specifically that can set you up for long-term compliance and keep you above board.
Choosing the right workwear
The emphasis should always be on quality and compliance — not price.
Although selecting the lowest-cost option is tempting, cheap workwear often carries a high risk of non-compliance and potential safety risks.
If you’re supplying workwear to your employees independently, there’s a lot of guesswork around compliance if you aren’t fully clued up. Opting for a managed workwear supplier for your sector can help you greatly in this regard. It takes away that guesswork, putting your compliance and standards needs in the hands of those with more expertise around the subject.
Effective workwear laundering
Supply is one thing, but ensuring your workwear remains up to standard largely depends on the quality and efficiency of your laundry process.
With so much going on at any given time, it’s understandably hard for businesses to devote the time needed to launder garments and consistently keep them fit for purpose for their employees.
However, from a hygiene perspective, it’s essential that PPE and protective clothing are suitably managed and maintained to remain compliant and ensure employee wellbeing on a day-to-day basis in moments where external health and safety intervention can’t be enforced.
How does workwear rental help?
As mentioned above, your managed workwear rental experts can remove any compliance guesswork you might have if you select and supply protective workwear independently.
This enables you to benefit from a wide range of choices with the peace of mind that whatever you opt for will keep your employees fully protected while meeting the required standards set out by the regulation.
Depending on which supplier you work with, you can often efficiently add a managed workwear laundry service that meets hygiene and compliance needs.
Above all, having a managed workwear rental service on your side reassures your employees that they’re working for a company that takes compliance seriously and keeps their safety and wellbeing seriously.