Term
Personal protective equipment
Items that protect employees from workplace risks, such as helmets, gloves or hi-vis vests. The employer provides them free under its own list; they are deductible and not income of the employee.
Updated
What it means
Personal protective equipment, PPE for short, covers helmets, gloves, goggles, ear defenders, respirators, safety footwear and other gear that protects employees from risks that cannot be removed in any other way. Its provision is governed by occupational health and safety rules.
The employer must provide PPE free of charge, based on a risk assessment for the specific workplace. It must keep the equipment usable, clean it and replace it in time, and the employee must use it. Replacing it with a cash allowance is not permitted.
PPE is the last line of protection. Technical and organisational measures that remove the risk at source, such as extraction, machine guards or changed work procedures, take priority. Only where they are not enough does personal protective equipment come in.
How it works in practice
Based on the risk assessment, we prepare with the employer a list of PPE issued for each job. Issues are recorded on the employee’s personal card with date and signature, which is the key document in a labour inspectorate check and in investigating a workplace accident.
PPE costs are a tax-deductible expense for the employer and not taxable income for the employee. This does not apply to ordinary clothing the company provides with no link to a risk, such as matching T-shirts for a shop; we assess those separately.
For jobs in a hazardous work environment or involving chemicals we work with the occupational health service, which recommends suitable types of equipment and replacement intervals.
What to watch out for
If an employee is injured and it turns out they lacked the prescribed PPE or it was worn out, the employer generally cannot escape liability for the damage. Besides compensation, a fine from the inspectorate may follow, so we check the condition of the equipment regularly.
The PPE list must be updated with every change in technology, workplace or a new risk. A list drawn up once when the company was founded and never revised is a common finding in inspections and a sign that risk management in the company is not working.
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