As I visit with my tree friends in person and online, I often hear of the challenges we all face as we work to keep our customers happy and our team safe. There are a lot of important pieces to our safety programs, including training, equipment inspections and maintenance and documentation. While these are all critical parts of our safety culture, they are not outwardly visible to our customers. The absolute foundation of our safety protocol is our use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

PPE includes all the mandated protective gear, such as head, eyes, hearing and leg protection. It is the employer’s responsibility to assure that all workers are provided with, or have access to, the necessary PPE.

Noel Boyer

While PPE seems like the most logical and sensible way to protect our staff, I still hear stories from owners and managers who struggle to get compliance with this basic workplace necessity. We hear every excuse in the book, like complaints of the helmets being uncomfortable, chain-saw protection that’s too hot, glasses fogging up or hearing protection that’s always in the way. Sometimes non-compliance is simple complacency or forgetfulness, other times it is defiance, usually partnered with the statement of how they have done tree work for however-many years and never had any problems.

Carrot, or stick
One approach to getting compliance from your team is the punitive approach. This is where you focus your efforts on catching your crew members working without their PPE, followed by write-ups and subsequent punishments for those who don’t follow the policy. This style is very common, especially in companies that have had long-running struggles with certain individuals who simply refuse to protect themselves according to industry protocols. It is a fear-based structure, and often creates a strong division between management and crew members.

Another approach, and one that I favor, is the building of a culture of safety where proper PPE use is not only obligatory, but truly appreciated by the team. Proper PPE use becomes so automatic that we all actually feel naked and weird when we don’t have our safety gear on. Any person not taking responsibility for their own safety and PPE use will be harassed or “voted off the island” by the rest of the crew.

All members of the team understand that an individual who risks his or her own safety on the job site is also a liability to everyone else and the company as a whole. Everyone takes pride in the professional image that proper PPE projects to the customers.

Building a culture
This culture of safety doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time. A good manager will get feedback from the crew members to help decide which PPE they prefer, and provide them with the gear that makes it the easiest for them to be safe on the job site.

A good manager will have no tolerance for non-compliance, and when punitive measures are necessary, will make sure the rest of the crew knows that the disciplinary measures were taken to protect the rest of the team.

Once that culture has been built and rewarded, any new faces who enter the team will be able to clearly see your team’s commitment to safety and protecting each other.

Noel Boyer, Board Certified Master Arborist (BCMA) and Certified Treecare Safety Professional (CTSP), is president of All About Trees LLC, a Tree Guardian company, a 14-year TCIA member company based in Springfield, Missouri. He also is chair of TCIA’s Board of Directors and a member of TCI Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Committee.