Take steps to send the right messages to new hires during safety orientation to protect them from accidents and injuries.
According to OSHA, 40 percent of injured employees have been on the job less than a year. Farmers Insurance Group says that more than half of new workers injured were employed for less than a month, and 1 of every 8 injuries occurred on the first day of work.
If you agree that these statistics are unacceptable, then you must also agree that safety orientation is one of the first and best opportunities for you to communicate your commitment to employee protection and get employees thinking about safety first from Day 1.
Safety orientation is something you want to plan carefully and execute effectively. Decide what messages you want new employees to take away. Then build content accordingly. Recommended topics include:
- Company safety policies and work rules
- General hazards in the work area
- Specific hazards involved in each task the employee performs
- Hazards associated with other areas of the facility
- Safe work practices and procedures
- Location of emergency equipment (fire extinguishers, eyewash stations, first-aid supplies, etc.)
- Smoking regulations
Whatever safety meeting you need, chances are you’ll find it prewritten and ready to use in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library on CD. Try it at no cost or risk. Here’s how.
- Emergency evacuation procedures and routes
- Who to talk to regarding safety concerns and questions
- Steps to take in case of an accident or near miss
- Reporting procedures
- Selection, use, and care of PPE
- Safe use of tools and equipment
- Safe lifting techniques and material handling procedures
- Proper handling, use, and storage of hazardous materials and location of SDSs
Some employers use a safety orientation checklist to ensure that all relevant topics have been covered. The checklist should be signed by participating employees and maintained in personnel files.
Other companies like to be up front with new hires about the cost associated with various types of accidents.
Still others bring in an employee who sustained an injury to talk about what happened and its effect on the worker and his or her family.
Whichever strategies you employ, be sure to make periodic “knowledge checks” during safety orientation to assure new workers are getting the messages you want to communicate and understanding and assimilating the information they are being provided with.
We challenge you to NOT find a safety meeting you need, already prewritten, in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library. Take up our challenge at no cost or risk. Get the details.
Looking for New Hire Training Materials?
If you’re looking for the perfect safety training sessions to get new workers on the right track, BLR’s Safety Meetings Library has the materials you need.
Safety Meetings Library provides the perfect materials for conducting engaging training on a host of important safety orientation topics. And this exceptional training resource is not only effective, it’s cost-effective.
All told, the CD provides you with more than 400 ready-to-train meetings on more than 100 key safety topics—a shrewd investment in this time of tight safety budgets. In addition to the meetings’ supplemental quizzes and handouts, you also get relevant regulations (OSHA’s CFR 29), a listing of the most common safety violations cited by OSHA, and case studies of actual OSHA cases and their outcomes.
Safety Meetings Library lets you choose from a variety of training approaches, including:
- Mandatory—Sessions that are OSHA-required
- Comprehensive—Sessions with broadest coverage of a topic
- 7-Minute—Short, simple, targeted sessions to fit tight schedules
- Initial—A session used as introductory training on a topic
- Refresher—Sessions that follow up on or reinforce previous training
- Tool Box Talk—More informal reinforcement of a topic
- PowerPoint®—Graphic presentations for comprehensive initial or refresher training
- Hands-on—A session in which there are training activities
- Spanish—Including Spanish language handouts and quizzes coordinated with English sessions
You can get a preview of the program by using the links below. But for the best look, we suggest a no-cost, no-obligation trial. Just let us know and we’ll arrange it for you.