Glove maker gives industry a handy lift

A passion to improve productivity, as well as keep people safe, has proved to be a formidable force for a local manufacturer.

The founders of safety glove manufacturer Performance On Hand are well aware of the humour inherent in acknowledging that their rapid growth has been thanks to a hands-on approach to building their business.

The 2015 Rising Stars finalist has been making gloves since 2006, and now considers itself to be a market leader in the field of workplace safety.

Performance On Hand creates gloves for use in mining, oil and gas, construction, automotive, logistics and shipping and law enforcement, all across Australia, as well as in New Zealand and parts of Asia.

Surprisingly, though, neither of the joint chief executives, Damione and Sharon Wright, comes from a trade background.

Instead, Mr and Mrs Wright met while working at the Reserve Bank of Australia, with the idea to create Performance on Hand coming when visiting mine sites and manufacturing facilities to research forward indicators of business performance.

“The one thing that was really obvious was that people were wearing hard hats, people were wearing steel capped boots, high-vis, hearing protection and eye protection,” Mrs Wright told Business News.

“But their hands, which were the most obvious thing being put in danger’s way, weren’t protected.”

Mr Wright said the pair had always wanted to establish a business together and work for themselves, but they didn’t have a reason to justify that leap.

But he said during those visits for the RBA, they had their lightbulb moment.

“It’s similar to footwear – you don’t wear basketball shoes on the tennis court,” Mr Wright said.

“Similarly, the one-size-fits-all leather riggers, which were the predominant solution at that time, are certainly not suitable for every particular task.”

Mr Wright said the underpinning reason for establishing Performance On Hand was to give tradespeople the freedom to do their particular jobs, without fear of injury.

Safety gloves, Mr Wright said, were an insurance policy – a last line of defence against workplace injury.

“You don’t wear them because you expect to get hurt, but chances are if you don’t wear them, you will get hurt,” he said.

“Hand injuries are the leading workplace injury in Australia; 30 per cent of all injuries are hand related.

“When you go into specific sectors … like oil and gas and mining, manual labour-intensive environments, over 60 per cent of workplace injuries in those sectors are hand related.”

Mrs Wright said Performance on Hand’s consultative approach to creating gloves for specific tasks – by going to work sites and speaking directly with the people who use them – was the driving force for the company’s success.

“Getting the right product was only half of where we were at,” she said.

“The other part was making sure we actually serviced them as a customer, not necessarily just as someone who is buying our gloves.

“It’s kind of like a partnership – our relationship managers will go to a site and ask an end user how the gloves are doing, and we’ll act on that.”

Later this year, Performance On Hand expects to expand its presence into a new market, setting up a base in Amsterdam to service continental Europe and the UK.

“Because of some of the market turmoil here in Australia we’re just taking our time to make sure that we execute that correctly,” Mr Wright said.

“We’ve been working on that project for a few years now, we’ve identified the right partner, we’ve had some very good conversations with them and we’re very well-aligned.”

Performance On Hand already has a significant presence in the US, however it’s not by selling gloves.

Mr Wright said the company’s research and development division had created several innovations that were in high demand overseas.

“We developed a heat-shield that we call Climax, it’s a very effective heat-shield used in fabrication environments where people need performance for manual handling tasks but they also need protection from extreme heat,” he said.

“We are now exporting Climax, which is a material, into the US market.

“We’re also working with Curtin University at the moment on an anti-vibration solution.

“It’s in pre-production at this stage, we’re working on the final production-ready product, but it’s another real world-leading technology which will reduce the amount of vibration that people are exposed to.”