How to Write an Effective Personal Protective Equipment Toolbox Talk

Introduction

A Personal Protective Equipment toolbox talk is used as an ideal topic for safety protection, especially within the construction industry. Basically, personal protective equipment (PPE), is anything used or worn by an individual, in order to reduce the hazards relating to health and safety. It’s aimed to look after workers by decreasing their contact to physical, chemical, and biological dangers. The employees use it when other exposure precautionary measures at the workplace do not fully manage the risk. This safety topic can be used inform employees regarding necessary PPE guidelines, so that damaged and defective equipment can be exchanged.

Types of PPE

It may be a little far to include every single category of equipment in one toolbox talk. Therefore, to write an effective PPE toolbox talk, the focus should be on the PPE used within the organisation, or for a particular job.

Head Protection

The most commonly used category of head-specific PPE, is a hard hat. It works for quite a lot of purposes and prevent head injuries from for example a falling object. One must keep in mind, that for head protection there are certain standards. Therefore, the organisation should make sure that the equipment used at a jobsite is in line with the national standards.

Eye Protection

It becomes necessary to use face shields, safety glasses and goggles, for protecting the eyes from any sort of harm in various situations. These include, but is not limited to, welding, chiselling and grinding amongst many other. Theirs is no doubt that safety equipment becomes mandatory in any work, which involves the danger of sparks or debris in the air. Safety glasses are a bit similar to sunglasses; however the different feature is that they contain a wraparound lens so the sides can be protected. When it comes to safety goggles, they offer even closer fit which keeps the eyes safe from every angle. In addition to that, the full-face shields are commonly used for tasks such as welding, or where there is a risk of sparks and chemicals touching the eyes.

Foot Protection

At construction sites, many manufacturing site and other industries where heavy equipment or objects are used, steel toed boots or shoes are mandatory. The organisation must guarantee that the foot protection used, is in line with the local or national criteria. On construction sites, we can commonly observe hard-toed boots as footwear, which keeps the toes safe from being compressed and ankles from twisting. It is the responsibility of an employer, that all work personnel have appropriate safety footwear. In this regard, an effective personal protective equipment toolbox talk should lay emphasis on the significance of wearing safety footwear all the time.

Hand Protection

This is a fundamental part of PPE, since hand injuries are quite common. One must always remember that it is not practically possible to wear hand protection, unlike foot protection, all the time. An effective toolbox talk may take into account the circumstances where it becomes compulsory or ideal to use protective gloves, as well as the most suitable kinds. Tough leather gloves can be worn for hand protection while handling sharp objects. The employees should be clearly made aware of the fact that different materials have diverse intensities of cut resistance. It might sound simple, but in reality, this can play a significant in keeping the workers safe.

Hearing Protection

In PPE toolbox talks, hearing protection is sometimes overlooked. However, it is important to emphasise that extremely loud noises at the workplace, especially in the construction industry, can be very dangerous to an employee’s hearing over time. In terms of ear protection, the PPE toolbox talk typically covers earmuffs, ear caps and/or earplugs. Now one must keep in mind, that each of them may be used in different circumstances. The toolbox talk should include at what noise level the workers should use ear protection.

If you need to provide a toolbox talk related to PPE, then our PPE Toolbox Talk might be of interest to you.

Alternatively, if you are looking for a range of ready to deliver toolbox talks, then you might be interested in our toolbox talk packages. These include a range of toolbox talks at a cost-effective price.