Page 32 - OHS, November/December 2024

S A F E T Y C U L T U R E
days on the job. Pearlman, an expert in new worker safety, advises
that one of the most important must-wins in those early months
is teaching new hires to look for risk patterns and other human
factors issues.
Many hazards are obvious—no one needs to be told to be cau-
tious around the massive trucks as they enter and exit the load-
ing dock. But what may be less clear to new workers is that those
trucks are especially dangerous in the aft ernoon, when the docks are
crowded and the drivers are tired and in a rush. Recent hires won’t
have the contextual experience to recognize these issues until they’re
pointed out to them. Th ey’re also unlikely to have received human
factors training, which would have taught them to look out for risk
patterns like this or to be aware of the dangers of fatigue, rushing and
other states of mind that can elevate the likelihood of an incident.
An Ongoing Effort
It’s also worth noting that before a new hire even has the chance to
run into a hazard in the workplace, they will have already encoun-
tered the company’s culture. Culture is, at its most basic level, a
collective sense of acceptable behaviors and how things should get
done. It includes minor stuff , like whether new hires are greeted
warmly or with a gruff , “Don’t screw this up like the last guy did.”
It also includes major stuff , such as how comfortable workers are
with stopping work in unsafe conditions.
People can get a pretty good feel for a workplace’s safety cul-
ture if they’re given enough time. Aft er a while, they’ll pick up on
whether it’s considered acceptable to fi le a near-miss report or to
exercise stop-work authority. But learning all of that on their own
takes time. A proper safety orientation can speed up that learning
and reduce the risk of injury—but only if your safety onboarding
takes clear steps to integrate new workers into the culture.
Safety onboarding is called a process for a good reason: because
it’s ongoing by nature. New hires have a lot to learn in their fi rst
months on the job, and they’re liable to forget some of what they
learn in their initial onboarding sessions. It’s up to safety profes-
sionals to ensure there are established steps to repeat, reinforce and
reiterate (and did I mention repeat?) key information.
Th e fi rst weeks and months on the job are an incredibly risky
time for workers and employers. One of the biggest determinants
of just how risky they are? Th e depth of the onboarding process.
It takes time and eff ort for safety professionals to properly train
new employees on key safety issues, discuss the human factors that
can make their jobs more dangerous, and integrate them into the
workplace culture. But when these things happen, new hires have a
much better chance of staying safe in the fi rst year on the job.
Ray Prest is the Director of Marketing at SafeStart, a company focused on
human factors solutions that reduce preventable deaths and injuries on
and off the job. Ray has educated people about safety and human factors
management for over 20 years.
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in the New Year!
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32 Occupational Health & Safety | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2024 www.ohsonline.com