Teaching new employees about OSHA and general safety

Sam Church, managing director of The Safety Department, Inc., answers questions about the proper way to educate new employees about OSHA and company safety.

Q: When an employee joins a construction crew, especially one who may be fresh out of school or never been on a jobsite before, what is the best approach to bring this person up to speed on following OSHA safety regulations?

A: The project manager or job foreman should have a brief interview with all new employees. He should find out whether the new hire has had any OSHA-authorized curriculum such as the OSHA 10-hour course as part of his technical education, training or apprenticeship. If not, the new hire needs to go through a complete new employee safety orientation before going to work. Otherwise, the project manager or foreman can probably go directly to his company and site-specific requirements for OSHA’s “big four” accidents at construction sites: fall protection, electrical safety, caught-between and struck-by accidents. The project manager or job foreman should also emphasize site- and job-specific personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements and talk about chemical hazards, explaining the MSDS availability and chemical inventory on the site. This is important because this is almost always the most frequently OSHA-issued citation. If possible, use the buddy system with new or inexperienced workers. Pair the new guy up with a safe, experienced employee for a few days.

Q: How should this person be made aware of a company’s additional safety practices?

A: Through a detailed safety orientation as explained in the last question. Employers should avoid the temptation to buy a canned program and use it as their only source of safety training. The practice of seating new hires in a jobsite trailer, slapping a video in the machine and leaving the room is woefully inadequate and doesn’t meet OSHA’s requirements for “site-specific” safety training. Live instruction, with an opportunity for new employees to ask questions, is always best.

Q: Who is ultimately responsible if an employee violates an OSHA safety regulation?

A: The employer is always the party cited by OSHA. There is no legal authority provided in the Occupational Safety and Health Act that enables OSHA to cite employees.

Q: How much safety training should be done before the new employee steps onto the jobsite?

A: It’s difficult to specify a certain quantity of safety training time. OSHA has different training requirements for different types of jobsites, according to the exact job tasks a given worker may be called upon to perform. For example, a welder or ironworker will have different training requirements from a day laborer, and equipment operators need specialized instruction very different from drywallers.

A handy tool for determining what training to give and to whom can be found on OSHA’s Web site, www.osha.gov/doc/outreachtraining/
htmlfiles/osha2254.html, where you can find, “Training requirements in OSHA construction industry standards and training guidelines.” This document breaks down required training according to subparts within the construction standards.

Q: Who should be in charge of the safety education?

A: If an employer is too small to hire a safety compliance officer, then the task needs to fall to someone who sees the employees most often – a project manager or jobsite foreman, for example. There’s really no one better suited to oversee the day-to-day safety of workers.

Q: What are some common safety mistakes new employees make when they are first on the jobsite?

A: Most common, whether a new employee or experienced, is getting in a hurry. This leads to taking shortcuts which, without a doubt, eventually leads to accidents.

Other frequent mistakes are improper use of or total lack of PPE. It’s not unusual to observe workers using grinders, with sparks and metal shards flying everywhere, to have no face shield and maybe no protective glasses. Both are required for this task. Also, a general lack of hearing protection is common. Power equipment almost always creates unsafe decibel levels. Even when the equipment operator uses protection, many of the workers in close proximity will be working without hearing protection.

Finally, constant awareness of unprotected floor/working surfaces that are 6' or higher from the next level are common safety mistakes. Falls continue to be the leading cause of fatalities at jobsites.

Q: How should feedback be given if a new employee violates an OSHA or company safety policy?

A: Progressive discipline is best to protect workers and employers. Something along the lines of first, a verbal warning and re-instruction; second, a written or “formal” warning and re-instruction; and third, suspension and/or dismissal.

Workers should be given the opportunity to make honest mistakes and to learn from them. Employers have an ethical, legal and financial obligation to document their good faith efforts to enforce their company’s rules and OSHA’s safety regulations.

Q: How can co-workers assist in new employees’ learning process?

A: On an ideal jobsite, workers would take a proactive approach to preventing injuries to co-workers through on-the-spot warnings and reminders. There is no more effective reinforcement than an immediate verbal reminder. Safety training should never end in the classroom or at toolbox talks. Beyond the simple “caring for our brother” principles, co-workers should always keep in mind that an unsafe worker next to them presents an increased likelihood for injury to everyone. Also, a serious injury could shut down a jobsite, hitting every employee in the pocketbook.

Q: What other information or best practices are there to ensure that new employees will keep themselves and their co-workers safe?

A: Other than the information provided by a full-time safety officer, the OSHA Web site, www.osha.gov, is a rich source of information. The site is constantly improving and is user-friendly.

Check out OSHA’s Quick Takes, which give brief but valuable snippets of advice, best practices and warnings. Employers and workers should visit this site frequently and take advantage of the free, lifesaving information there.

Editor’s Note: Sam Church is managing director at The Safety Department, Inc., a workplace/occupational safety consultancy. He can be reached at www.safetydept.com or by calling (412) 572-6789.

Published in the September/October 2007 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

back to top