Good afternoon We currently supply 3 types of ear protection for the factory 1. Foam disposable plugs 2. Banded hearing protectors 3. Ear muffs These vary in price up to about £8 per item. The question that I have is if an employee requests to use a different, more expensive type of ear protection e.g. moulded ear plugs, is it possible and legal that the company asks the employee to incur the additional cost and reimburse the person a maximum of £8 (The highest cost that the company pays for ear protection).... The company is supplying various types of protection to cover different peoples needs but some people are choosing to purchase their own ear protection. This leaves the company open to liability claims in the future as we have no control or proof that these offer the necessary protection. In this case would it be simply to get those employees using their own protection to sign a disclaimer or can the company prohibit the use of these and ensure that the more expensive ear protection is brought from a trusted source e.g. a specific PPE website. Any information will be great..... Thanks

In the first instance I would try to establish why employees are using their own hearing protection rather than that provided by the company. There is probably a good reason. Strictly speaking you cannot charge or impose a levy on employees for PPE. Although it is common practice to provide up to a certain amount for footwear where for some reasons the employee finds it difficult to wear the standard issue. A disclaimer is not worth the paper it's written on. You could prohibit the use of non-approved PPE, but you need to consider my first paragraph. You could also consult your employees to establish what type of hearing protection works best, which is the most comfortable to wear given the task, etc. Then offer a choice based on your consultation exercise - this is most likely the solution I suggest.

Hi everyone Thanks for that, I will stay away from the whole disclaimer issue. The agreement that Stuie suggested sounds good though. Might see if we can work that into our policy somewhere. Yesterday I found a site that allows users to mould their own ear plugs themselves.... http://www.allearplugs.c...d-your-own-earplugs.aspx Going to trial these to see how good they are and keep a record so that if a person loses one pair they get a 'yellow card' and then if they lose another pair then the company goes down the disciplinary route....as the plugs are relatively cheap in comparison I believe that we can work it that way. We still have the problem that some people have been here 30 years and are part of the furniture. They don't want to wear ear defenders and point blank refuse.....but that's for management to figure out! Thanks again

Putting aside the PPE issues What steps are you taking to reduce the noise levels?

and ensure that you know what the noise levels etc. are so the correct PPE can be got

Hi, We currently supply moulded ear plugs to workers but only if they have been recommended by our occupational health department. the ear plugs themselves cost £50 but are considered good value.

Hi Bob The response I got, amongst a lot of waffle, was.... Answer from specialist You cannot charge for PPE unless the employee is negligent. From my previous chats to them we determined that the company must pay/supply the original items and a replacement if required. Then, if the replacements get lost, the company can charge for the 3rd set of PPE as it will be deemed that the employee is negligent. Hopefully if one set ever gets lost then the warning shots will be fired and that will be enough to stop anymore being lost. We may decide to simply go down the disciplinary route instead of trying to deduct pay from employees instead but that's a decision which is above me.....thankfully