What Is Required?
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandates the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect employees from workplace hazards when engineering and administrative controls are not feasible or sufficient to reduce exposure to safe levels.
Employers have a legal responsibility to:
- Assess the workplace to determine if PPE is necessary to protect workers.
- Provide appropriate PPE—including protection for the eyes, face, head, hands, feet, and body, as well as protective clothing and barriers—at no cost to employees.
- Ensure proper use and maintenance of PPE, keeping it in a clean, sanitary, and reliable condition at all times.
What Is Proper Use?
PPE must be worn and used correctly to offer the intended level of protection. When used improperly, PPE may fail to protect the worker—defeating its very purpose and exposing the employee to serious hazards.
A low rate of PPE compliance often signals deeper issues within the organization’s safety management system, such as poor training or lack of enforcement.
Common reasons employees fail to use PPE correctly include when the employer:
- Does not provide high-quality, comfortable PPE suitable for the job.
- Fails to supervise or monitor PPE use.
- Neglects to enforce PPE requirements consistently.
- Does not train employees adequately on proper PPE use, care, and limitations.
To ensure maximum protection, employers must train, supervise, and enforce the correct use of PPE, while employees must take personal responsibility for wearing and maintaining their equipment properly.