Getting buy in from workers on wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) means a culture shift. First you have to have champions. There will always be early adopters to personal protective equipment and you want to gain your champions and work with the champions to create positive peer pressure that will enforce the laggards to comply.
You also want to check and see if there are any barriers to effective use of PPE. Does the PPE fit properly? It is fashionable? Does it look good? Have you been promoting how it saves lives and give concrete examples of workers who had a near miss and their PPE protected them? The Golden Hardhat award? The Safety Owl’s safety glasses? Things like that with recognition and awards. Always focus on your champions. Don’t go to people that aren’t wearing personal protective equipment and focus all your attention on them.
You should ensure that you have a disciplinary program that if they are not wearing PPE the consequences are severe and happen right away. In other words, they are sent home if they are not wearing their steel toes and think about the fact that they are not wearing their steel toes.
You should also have a system of random inspections where if workers are working in isolated areas they know that their boss could drop by any time and see if they are wearing their PPE.
These are some effective methods to make sure that your workers are wearing the gear because the gear ultimately saves lives.