If you need safety gloves as part of your risk controls then do you know what qualilties they should have in order to protect against specific risks?  Martin Mulholland explains.

If you are considerig PPE then the fist thing to do is to undertake a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) assessment.

A PPE assessment is a systematic process to identify workplace hazards, determine the necessary PPE to protect employees, and ensure that the selected PPE is suitable, maintained, and properly used.

It is a crucial part of risk management, helping to protect employees from injury and ensuring compliance with health and safety legislation. 

Selecting the right safety gloves is essential to protect workers from mechanical hazards such as cuts, punctures, abrasion, and impact.

The best way to ensure proper protection is by checking the glove’s EN 388 rating, the European standard for mechanical protection.  The EN 388 standard uses a series of numbers and letters to indicate performance levels against key risks, as follows:

- Abrasion Resistance.  This is a scale of 1-4

- Circular Blade Cut Resistance. This is a scale of 1-5.

- Tear Resistance. This is a scale of 1-4.

- Puncture Resistance. This is a scale of 1-4.

- Straight Blade Cut Resistance. This is a scale of A-F.

- Impact Resistance.  This is an optional test and will only show if the gloves have impact protection (indicated by the ‘P’). If there is no sixth digit, then the gloves do not claim to have impact protection.

For example, a glove marked "4543CP" offers high resistance across all hazards, including advanced cut protection.

When choosing gloves, assess the specific tasks involved — for instance, sharp metal handling requires higher cut resistance, while assembly work may need flexibility and abrasion resistance.

Always balance protection with comfort and dexterity to maintain productivity. Finally, ensure gloves are well-fitted, regularly inspected, and replaced when damaged to guarantee consistent safety performance.

Ensure that your staff are formally issued with suitable gloves relative to their tasks (there may need to be multiple types to cover different operations) and ensure you document this process.

Staff should be made aware that they must report any issues with the gloves or the operations and to obtain repalcments if there are defects, loss or damage to the gloves.