Holding onto and manipulating tools, materials, and equipment are fundamental and necessary actions required of every worker at construction sites and in factories across the country.   No matter what the job, a good, solid grip, in all weather conditions and potentially with foreign substances coating the item being held is essential for ensuring efficient and safe productivity.

Many times, a single glove design simply may not be able to perform all these tasks satisfactorily or safely.  Gloves used for dry work may be less effective (or even ineffective) when the work transitions to handling oil-coated surfaces.  One that works well with oil, however, may lack the tactile sensitivity needed for working with small or dry materials and may even deteriorate rapidly when repeatedly contacting abrasive or rough surfaces.

An employee issued a particular glove type for a job in the morning may have to perform other jobs during the day that should be done with another type of glove, but they may become too preoccupied or simply does not have time to change.  For glove manufacturers, the challenge has been to design a glove that is adaptable to all work conditions and situations so that constantly changing gloves would be unnecessary.

Fortunately, a superior glove is now available that checks all the boxes.  Known as adaptive-grip gloves, adaptive palm coating technology and other improvements enable them to perform well without sacrificing comfort or performance no matter what the job activity. Flexibility, durability (without compromising dexterity), grip enhancement, and light cut resistance, while handling rough, oily, dry, small, or wet materials, have become the hallmarks of this high performance personal protective equipment.

Adaptive-grip gloves have a unique blend of technology that makes them unique (see list below):

  • Adaptable.  The country already has smart phones, televisions, and watches.  Now it has smart gloves too.  The “one glove” option allows workers to concentrate on the job and not whether their gloves will perform well, which also helps to foster overall improved efficiency.
  • Durable.  Palm coatings in this class of glove have tremendous resilience. In fact, rigorous American National Standards Institute (ANSI) test results have proven that gloves with this coating set new benchmarks for durability, meaning that the gloves will last much longer than conventional gloves.  The testing lab results prove they have more than 50% better abrasion resistance when compared to
  • conventional gloves.  Employers also will be able to rely on them as a cost effective solution to meet their hand-protection obligations as required by OSHA.
  • Graspable.  Simply holding on to an object using conventional hand protection may be challenging.  Next generation gloves’ superior adaptive palm coatings respond to environmental factors (cold, damp, hot), material characteristics (abrasive, slippery, heavy, or light) that may improve the wearer’s bare-handed gripping ability.
  • Comfortable.  Maximum joint flexibility and minimum bulkiness allow them to be as comfortable as they are durable and protective.

he future of hand protection is here in the form of adaptive-grip gloves.  Mixing and matching the correct hand protection for each individual task soon may be a thing of the past.  Employers who equip their employees with these innovative products will foster a safer and more productive workforce. While not necessarily a perfect solution, they deliver a substantial improvement beyond the performance of conventional gloves and should be well worth the investment.

Safety Culture Development Requires Commitment

Creating a truly effective safety culture requires hard work and commitment from all parties involved.  Although sometimes challenging to achieve and maintain, illness and injury prevention programs play an essential role in sustaining a safe (as well as profitable) work environment, regardless of the type of business.  In an ideal situation, employers value their employees’ well-being and employees, feeling appreciated and respected, respond by becoming more loyal, engaged, and productive.   

Unfortunately, many companies do not achieve this high level of safety integration and the reasons for failing to do so can vary considerably because each work environment has a unique culture.  The fundamentals of building an outstanding safety culture are not overly complicated, however, but to succeed they must be embraced by all company personnel (see below)

  • Top Management Commitment- All companies with first rate safety programs have the complete support of the highest management levels along with middle and lower management too.  This is a critical, and necessary, component of all exceptional safety and wellness programs.  Furthermore, this commitment must be genuine because employees will be able to detect false sincerity or superficiality. 
  • Employee Involvement- Employees must play an integral role in their own safety management. Immersed is the better word to describe how they should be involved.  Moreover, this requires that they have significant input into how the company administers its safety program because they are best able to identify potential hazards and offer suggestions on how these may be eliminated.
  • Incentivize Correctly– Rewarding employees for working safely can be worthwhile but only if done properly.  Employers may have good intentions by recognizing accident-free workers or groups of workers using incentives and rewards, but these well-intended programs can backfire. For example, the “all or nothing” approach to an accident free workplace may encourage workers to not report or underreport them for fear of forfeiting a reward.  Peer pressure may be brought to bear too as co-workers intimidate each other not to report accidents to stay in contention for zero-accident awards.  This is a major problem across the country since the National Safety Council (NSC) estimates in a recent report that 4.26 million accidents have gone unrecorded. 

 

What are some tactics to use that will create a more integrated and sincere safety program?

  • Cultivating genuine empathy among top company leadership that is actionable to benefit worker safety is always challenging but safety professionals must do their best to make this happen.  The personalities of leaders may or may not be receptive to the empathetic approach and, if not, the case must be made that the “Return on Investment” (ROI) of an injury and illness free work environment is substantial.  In other words, an intact workforce means undisrupted production, zero workers’ compensation expenses, and ultimately a huge savings for the company.
  • Instead of using the “winner takes all” approach where the zero accident employee group is rewarded but the one accident group receives nothing, company management should view reporting accidents as a positive.  Why?  This philosophy discourages underreporting and most importantly will focus attention on unsafe situations so that employees and their managers may analyze what happened then brainstorm ways to prevent it from happening again.
  • Managers also should encourage their employees to come forward to identify potential hazards too before an accident can occur.  Employees must be confident that reporting is a positive action that helps themselves, their coworkers, and ultimately the entire company. Instead of force-feeding safety protocols to employees as a “necessary evil” and punishing unsafe behaviors, reward employees for demonstrating their knowledge of pertinent safety topics or positively incentivize them to report accidents.

The realities of the post-COVID workplace dictate that employers create a more worker-centric philosophy than ever before. An emerging generation of younger workers are inclined to quit for reasons that may surprise some employers, such as not feeling sufficiently challenged or dissatisfaction with their company’s position on social issues.  Suffice to say that employees who do not feel appreciated will not stay with their company for long and short-term employees like this never master safety best practices or pass their safety knowledge on to new workers. Preserving and protecting a workforce is more important than ever for a host of reasons.  Enlightened employers understand why this is necessary and will make every effort to retain their valued employees as much as practicable.  Fostering a culture where employees play an integral role in accident and illness prevention is an important step towards achieving this objective.

Hamond Safety Management

Our Experience staff of loss control professionals can assist you in controlling workers compensation cost by providing a wide range of services for reducing workplace injuries. Our staff is available always to address the following workplace concerns: 

  • Assistance in resolving company and worksite safety issues
  • Develop and provide customized company safety programs
  • Assistance in updating existing safety manuals for OSHA compliance
  • Safety Audits
  • Assistance in Recordkeeping & Related Items
  • Worksite & Shop Hazard Assessment service
  • Emergency Preparedness & Implementation
  • PPE Program Implementation
  • New Employee Safety Orientation
  • Fleet Safety Review
  • Confined Space awareness training
  • Forklift Safety Certification
  • Lockout/Tagout Review & Training
  • Noise Level/Hearing Conservation Testing
  • Employee certification for the new Hazard Communication Standard
  • Safety presentations for company safety meetings
  • Participations in worksite safety talks
  • Representation for the N.Y.S. ICR-59 program (if required)
  • Site-specific Safety manuals
  • Development of Corporate Safety Manuals

OSHA 10hr Safety Class (at your place of business)

Please direct any questions or concerns to:

The Safety Division at Hamond Safety Management

Anthony Vacchio,   avacchio@hamondgroup.com   516-762-4224