When it comes to a worker’s personal protective equipment, one size and style does not fit all. There is a shortage of workers in skilled trades. Women are heavily represented in clerical, administrative and professional roles in the economy, but grossly under-represented in non-traditional careers such as the trades, according to Statistics Canada. Attracting more women into the skilled trades, could address worker shortages. Women can enjoy excellent economic benefits when they invest time in learning a construction trade, however what they don’t enjoy is wearing PPE designed for men.

It is a widespread practice for women to be given the same standard PPE developed for the men in the workforce. Women that wear oversized gloves or loose-fitting coveralls are put at risk of these garments catching in the moving parts of machinery and creating an obvious safety hazard.

Guys, we know what a pain it is to wear a hard hat that is too big for us, well it’s true that men do have a lot of product choice to fix the problem, but women are often left with a hard hat that continues to fall off their head, or one that not only does not look good it is constantly blocking where they are trying to look.

Leading employers recognize that solid safety performance drives business results and solid safety performance depends on safe, engaged employees. Integrating safety into the workplace is good business. The irony is, if the protective equipment you are required to wear at work cannot be properly fitted it puts your safety at risk. Whether you are a man or a woman, wearing PPE while on the job is the right thing to do, and PPE must fit properly so that it can effectively protect you from the hazard for which it was designed.

Today there has been striking progress in the availability of PPE for women, ladies you no longer are forced to make do and if you are, it’s time for a PPE “makeover”.