When hand injuries kept piling up across a construction company’s job sites back in 2019, their safety team knew a better glove wasn’t enough – they needed a better program. What started as a worker-led glove trial on a single jobsite became a nationwide hand protection standard. It’s proof that a PPE program built from the ground up, with workers involved from day one, changes outcomes.
The challenge: Recurring hand injuries across jobsites
For one of the largest full-service real estate, architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the United States, large-scale jobsites with thousands of workers means that hand injuries are a constant operational risk, not just a safety concern.
In 2019, the need for change was especially clear at one Virginia jobsite. Workers were experiencing recurring recordable hand injuries, and subcontractors were sourcing hand protection independently. Without a consistent standard in place, it was difficult to align expectations, measure compliance, or define what adequate protection should look like across applications.
The safety team needed a smarter approach, one that set clear expectations, held subcontractors accountable, and got workers to wear their PPE.
The solution: Worker-led glove trials + feedback that shaped product development
The company’s Virginia Safety team invited multiple glove suppliers onsite to run trials across subcontractors, putting products directly in the hands of workers under real jobsite conditions. HexArmor® stood out by bringing the right combination of product performance, field support, and responsiveness to worker feedback.
Through the HexArmor Shield® program, the company built a PPE safety program around the specific applications, hazards, and compliance challenges workers faced in the field.
Those early trials helped lay the foundation for the Enhanced Glove Program (EGP), a structured hand protection standard built around minimum requirements and an approved HexArmor® glove list for subcontractors. In 2020, the initial rollout mandated two HexArmor® glove models across a single pilot site, giving both teams a controlled environment to measure results and gather honest field feedback.
The partnership continued to evolve as field feedback came in. Worker and trade partner input helped shape the Helix® Core™ 3010 and Helix® Core™ 3012, and later contributed to the development of the Helix® 3013IMP and Helix® 3014IMP, along with i2™ impact technology, in 2024 and 2025. The result was HexArmor’s most successful impact glove launch to date as of June 2026 – and a direct reflection of what a true manufacturer partnership looks like when both sides are committed to getting it right.
The results: A 60% decrease in hand and finger injuries
In 2023, the company made the EGP official across all job sites nationwide. To support adoption, subcontractors received six months of advance notice, contracts were amended to reflect the new standards, and every worker was provided with a pair of gloves to remove barriers to day-one compliance. HexArmor® also supported the rollout with marketing materials at no additional charge, including bilingual training materials, onsite educational posters, and a centralized resource hub.
Overall, the investment in implementation paid off:
- Hand and finger injuries decreased 60% since the EGP launched
- Rolling recordable TRIR dropped from 0.34 at implementation to an all-time low of 0.10 by 2026 YTD
- The pilot site logged 3 million+ man-hours over 2.5 years with only one OSHA recordable
- Multiple potential recordables were reduced to first-aid cases across jobsites
When incidents did occur, the gloves consistently turned what could have been a recordable injury, or worse, into a simple first-aid case.
The takeaway for safety leaders
For safety leaders managing large, multi-subcontractor workforces, this company’s program is a blueprint for what happens when hand protection is treated as a strategic safety initiative, not just a matter of buying commodity gloves.
With the right PPE requirements, worker feedback, field support, and manufacturer partnership, the results show up where they matter most: fewer injuries, lower severity, and better protection across the jobsite.
“I believe if it was not for the impact protection on the HexArmor® gloves, our colleague could have broken off the tip of his pinky, or at the bare minimum, split his pinky wide open.”
— Onsite Safety Manager
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