Safety Culture & Women's PPE

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss the importance of safety culture for women's personal protective equipment (PPE) in the workplace. 

Gaye shares her experience of encountering ill-fitting and uncomfortable PPE during her consulting career, which led her to advocate for better-fitting PPE for women. She explains the journey of founding Apto PPE, a women's and maternity fit-for-purpose safety workwear business, with the support of R2A. They discuss the challenges of getting proper fitting PPE for women in the market and the slow uptake of these options. 

They also highlight the importance of organisations prioritising the safety of women onsite; that from a WHS/OHS legislation perspective the objective is to achieve the highest level of protection, organisations need to ask: “Is this reasonably practicable?” The answer should be “Why not?”; not “Why would we?” 

 
For more information on Apto PPE head to www.aptoppe.com.au.


For information on Richard and Gaye's due diligence work, head to www.r2a.com.au.

Transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:00):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss safety culture in terms of women's PPE and Gaye's role in founding Apto PPE, a women's and maternity fit-for-purpose safety workwear business.

(00:22):

We hope you enjoy their chat. As always, if you do, please give us a rating. Also, please subscribe on your favourite podcast platform. If you have any questions or topic ideas, please get in touch via admin@r2a.com.au.

Gaye Francis (00:39):

Hi Richard and welcome to another podcast session.

Richard Robinson (00:43):

Hi Gaye. We're back again.

Gaye Francis (00:45):

We are back again. Today we're going to talk about something that's probably dear to my heart and you've been on the journey with me and that's about women's PPE onsite and the safety of women onsite. And I guess I've been an advocate for this for 15 years or so, maybe a bit more. And the journey that we've been on, and the setting up of Apto PPE, which R2A have supported for such a long time and continue to support, I'm happy to say.

(01:17):

I guess it all started as a Women in Engineering project many, many years ago when I was National Deputy Chair. And there was a project of some girls coming and saying that there was no proper fitting PPE for women. All the PPE for women was ill-fitting. And I can say that I have experienced that myself in my consulting career.

Richard Robinson (01:43):

I can confirm that I have witnessed this. I have actually sent photos of you to your new husband in your ill-fitting PPE they parked you in when we were in New Zealand one time inspecting things.

Gaye Francis (01:52):

It wasn't really attractive and it certainly wasn't comfortable to wear and it wasn't safe. One of my clear recollections is for being in a mine in New South Wales and I have quite a small foot, I'm a size seven ladies and I needed to have gumboots to go underground to have a look and my actual steel cap boots that were my own supply actually fitted inside the gumboots, the smallest gumboot that they had. And I remember walking around the mine and my foot coming out of that gumboot and my gumboot being left there. And I said to Richard, I said: If anything happens, Richard, I can't get out of here if my gumboots don't stay on. And I recall you saying to me: It's all right. I'll pick you up under my arm and run with you. So I sort of felt good that I wouldn't be left behind.

(02:44):

But it sort of made me think about why didn't women have proper fitting and fit for purpose PPE on site. So as I said, we are involved in Women in Engineering and one of the girls came and said: Ehy don't we have any of the proper fitting PPE for women onsite. Shoes was one thing, but also shirts and pants. And so we started to do a little bit of research. And the research that we came up with was there were a few organisations that had inverted commas "women's PPE", but all that they seemed to do was change the buttons from one side to the other. They weren't any different design, they weren't a different shape.

Richard Robinson (03:26):

For the males you probably don't realise that women's buttons actually do up on the other side.

Gaye Francis (03:30):

So when we talk to the larger organisations or the larger manufacturers of PPE, they said: Oh yes, we have a unisex range. So I sort of thought, well, women come in all different shapes and sizes and we have different body parts that are in different places and things like that that men's shirts don't necessarily fit the female form. So we did this pilot study through Women in Engineering. We had some designers from Challenger University in WA who came and did some prototypes for us. And that sort of went on and then we launched it at the international conference in Adelaide and it was really, really well received. And so Women in Engineering then did a trial with John Holland at the time and we got some really good feedback. But as a not-for-profit organisation, where does it go after that?

(04:22):

So we sort of started Apto PPE to see if we could get some proper fitting female PPE that was designed and tested by women that actually fitted the women's shape but also looked a bit different to what was on the market. No pockets on the breast line, no pockets on your thighs where you are a bit bigger. We need things in different shapes and sizes. So that's sort of how Apto started. And I remember at the time three of us had the idea of to start Apto and we called Richard down the back of the office and said: Richard, we've got an idea for you. And that's where we pitched it. I'm not sure he had any chance of...

Richard Robinson (05:05):

I was not in a position to say no, as I recall.

Gaye Francis (05:09):

You also thought it was a good idea at the time.

Richard Robinson (05:12):

Yea, well!

Gaye Francis (05:13):

And it sort of fitted with R2A's due diligence aspect as well in that it was safety onsite and how do we make sure that women are safe onsite so far as is reasonably practicable.

Richard Robinson (05:24):

I could actually identify vaguely with it because kind of lanky and having shirts that are a bit too short for you, you're just not comfortable. And the same thing happens when you're buying PPE for males. I mean I have to have an oversized body in order to get the right length arms and things like that. So you just notice these things and I presume women who sometimes fret about these things from my observation, more than a lot of males do, it would've obviously have much greater concern.

Gaye Francis (05:50):

So yeah, we've always pushed Apto from the safety aspect and making sure that women were safe onsite. And I think as you said, if you have Ill-fitting PPE that's too big in some areas it can get caught on machinery. It just gets in the way of you being able to do your job.

(06:10):

But one of the interesting things, as I said, we started Apto almost 15 years ago and there was not much on the market at that time.

Richard Robinson (06:21):

And the point I do remember, you were quite clear at the time, you weren't expecting to make money, but what you were hoping to do is change the world.

Gaye Francis (06:28):

Change the world. We've all got those aspirations whether we get there or not. And I think Apto has done that. There is certainly a lot more PPE options on the market now for females than there ever were. And it's really interesting to see, but the takeup is still really slow.

Richard Robinson (06:48):

Oh, and you've tried to get into a couple of organisations where, shall we say, the PPE operation is actually operated by a male who really doesn't get the point that women would like some different stuff around.

Gaye Francis (06:58):

I agree. And the procurement processes that go with it. And because they're still a minority, you are looking for specific PPE for tens of women rather than hundreds of women. So that bulk...

Richard Robinson (07:12):

Although I've got to say the pregnancy gear has actually been quite well accepted.

Gaye Francis (07:18):

That's correct. And one of the interesting things that a couple of organisations have done is actually put in a maternity bank in their organisation. So rather than having a personal issue PPE, they've had a bank of maternity pants and shirts from our range that the HR area actually keep. And so when you're pregnant and you change sizes during your pregnancy, you can go and get the size that fits you now and then in a couple of months time you go and get the next size if you need it. So that's a really interesting initiative I think from a number of Queensland organisations, mining organisations up in Gladstone that have done that.

(07:55):

So I think from Apto's viewpoint, we are sticking around to challenge the big guys that it's still not good enough. And even these 15 years later, I went to a NAWIC (National Association of Women In Construction) International Women's Day event in March this year, and they were talking about that we are still challenged on the basics in the construction industry; female facilities, toilet facilities, and change rooms on site. And PPE was still there (as an issue). And that was really mind blowing to me because I thought people had embraced that and organisations were just getting on with it. But I think it still shows that there's some women's workwear out there that is still unisex workwear that's sold as women's wear that not necessarily designed to fit a woman's shape and size.

(08:51):

You also went to an AMPI conference, Australian Marine Pilots conference, in October, I think it was, in Perth, and you listened to one of the... They were called the WISTA Group and they're the Women's International Shipping and Trading Association. And it was just a women's session on...

Richard Robinson (09:08):

Well, these are women/female marine pilots and marine pilotage is a particularly blokey sort of a place, I've got to say. Although the new president of AMPI's female. But the one that was particularly impressive was the female marine pilot from Papua New Guinea because that's a very paternal society. And to be a female marine pilot of Papua New Guinea, it was truly impressive. I wasn't so surprised by the Finnish and some of the Norwegians and the Nordic countries having female marine pilots. But there are some cultures where to be a female marine pilot is absolutely quite remarkable. It means you've been a ship's master generally on international shipping. So it's really quite impressive.

Gaye Francis (09:47):

But one of the issues that they were still bringing up was Ill-fitting PPE when we are in the 1920s - gosh, that's really a faux pas isn't it? The 2020s that would be! And we're still having these conversations when there's so much stuff that should be done. So from R2A's viewpoint and Apto's viewpoint, we're asking the question: Why shouldn't females have proper fitting, safe workwear onsite? Why wouldn't they?

Richard Robinson (10:19):

Well, from our point of view, it's been the WHS question. If the objective is to achieve the highest level of protection, is this reasonably practicable? The question is: Why not? But when you actually go to industry and talk to people, the reason is: Why would we? Which is the wrong way around and always has been.

Gaye Francis (10:39):

So that's Apto's challenge to organisations out there is make your women safe on site. There is options out there and there's quite a few options out there. They are smaller organisations, they're not the big guys, but there's some really good fitting female PPE out there. So make you girls safe on site.

Richard Robinson (10:59):

I think it goes a bit further than that. If the women in the office aren't happy, life gets more difficult. I recommend keeping the women in the office and onsite cheerful, life goes better.

Gaye Francis (11:10):

Well that shouldn't be the primary reason, but yes, that's right Richard.

Richard Robinson (11:14):

It does.

Gaye Francis (11:15):

Alright, so thank you for joining us today and listening to my rant. I hope you found it interesting and if Apto can help in any way, I'm more than happy to talk Apto further with anybody that's interested. So have a great day.

Richard Robinson (11:30):

Thanks Gaye.