Seeking the right balance of impact protection, comfort, and dexterity, the world's largest well services company finds HexArmor® is the perfect fit. They tried virtually every other glove on the market, but only the Rig Lizard® met the company's hand protection standards and had a 98% approval rating among workers.
HexArmor® works with some of the world's largest oilfield services companies, providing the widest range of high-performance oil and gas safety gloves. Many of our customers are recognized leaders in HSE performance and have a long-standing commitment to the highest standards of health and safety for their employees, customers, and contractors. Safety is a fundamental driver of many companies' long-term business success.
We recently helped the safety team for one of our customers in Alberta, Canada conduct a glove trial that led them to choose the Rig Lizard® impact gloves to outfit their crew.
Problem: Finding impact gloves workers will wear
When a customer agreement mandated impact protection for certain tasks, some workers at the well services company’s Alberta sites had to trade in the standard leather gloves they’d worn for years. The Safety Manager and his team began the process of finding a glove option that would help prevent impact injuries, and that workers would be willing to wear.
The challenge they and many other HSE managers face is the trade-off when you increase the protection level of your gloves. Increased impact resistance can mean lower dexterity and comfort. Because these workers were accustomed to wearing leather gloves, this discomfort made people initially resistant to the change. The safety team found that workers weren’t wearing the impact gloves they were given, even though they understood and accepted the new mandate.
Workers complained the gloves weren’t flexible enough, didn’t fit properly, or otherwise interfered with their ability to do their jobs.
In addition to impact, the well services company’s updated hand standards require a higher level of cut protection (for certain tasks) than previous gloves provided, plus puncture and abrasion resistance.
To find a glove that would meet all of these criteria and also garner widespread adoption among workers, the well services company’s safety team field-tested virtually every glove on the market. “Pretty much anything you can think of, we tried it in one application or another,” said the Safety Manager.
They trialed glove after glove, but nothing was a good fit. Most were not “user-friendly,” meaning workers didn’t like wearing them because they felt the gloves impeded their ability to do work. Some gloves were too stiff. Others lacked sufficient protection. Some would fall apart after a day or two of use.
Then they tried the Rig Lizard® by HexArmor®.
The Rig Lizard® is a perfect fit
After field-testing Rig Lizard® gloves with their workers, the well services company’s safety team immediately knew they’d found the right solution.
The Rig Lizard® glove series deliver ANSI/ISEA level A3 cut to A9 cut resistance, providing excellent puncture and abrasion resistance, and an extremely high level of impact protection.
Rig Lizard® gloves deflect 80% of the force of a blow to the back of the hand, while still maintaining a high level of comfort and dexterity. Even more importantly, almost all the workers who needed impact protection were happy to wear them.
“With everything else we tried, maybe 40% of the guys would like one glove, and 30% preferred another,” said the Safety Manager. “But when we started using the HexArmor® gloves, 98% of the guys gave positive feedback.” More and more workers were actually wearing their gloves, whereas in the past they had seen lower compliance. “It’s hard to please everybody. The overwhelmingly positive response from workers has been our biggest satisfaction thus far.”
Better gloves, better protection, better investment
The workers at this well services company in Alberta are pleased with their HexArmor® gloves. They have the dexterity needed to do their jobs effectively and the protection they need to work safely.
“The protection seems to be a lot better than other gloves we’ve used,” said the Safety Manager. “All around just a better glove that people actually want to wear.”
Even though HexArmor® costs more than leather and other standard gloves, the safety team in Alberta received a better return on their investment. HexArmor® gloves are more durable than anything else they’ve used.
With proper care and laundering, workers are able to use the same pair for up to three weeks at a time, and in some cases, even longer.
Compared to other gloves that disintegrate after a day or two of use, it’s entirely possible to save money by purchasing high-quality PPE that provides higher levels of protection.
Proactive safety program equals great safety record
Many companies wait until they have an injury before they make the decision to start looking for new safety gloves. The safety team for the well services company in Alberta, however, is always on the lookout for the best product on the market.
“If we have a product that works well, we’re still looking for the next thing to come along, and see how much better it is.”
This is certainly one of the reasons their injury rate has gone down year over year consistently.
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