People who are new to a job are just as likely to have an accident within the first 6 months at work as they are for the rest of their working lives.
What are the Risks for New Starters?
- A lack of work experience
- A lack of familiarity with the work and the work environment
- Not understanding how to raise concerns, or a lack of confidence to raise them
- Being overly eager to impress
It is also important to remember new starters:
- May not recognise hazards or any danger being posed
- May not understand the “obvious” rules regarding how to use equipment
- May not be familiar with hazards presented on site
- May not understand that hazards can and do change regularly
- May not understand and therefore could ignore warning signs, due to a lack of awareness of rules
- May not understand safe working procedures and therefore try to cut corners
Protecting New Starters
- Assess their capabilities:
- Check literacy and numeracy – possibly provide safety information non-verbally using pictures/signs / videos, especially if English is not their first language
- General health and physical capability to do the work
- Relevant work experience
- Conduct new starter inductions:
- Inform new starters of site-specific hazards
- Conduct a walk around – point out possible hazards, emergency escape routes and exits, the emergency form up point, first aid stations, etc
- Keep control measures up to date:
- Ensure control measures are properly used, remain effective, and are up to date
- Openly discuss risks and how they are managed
- Put in place health surveillance if required, as per risk assessment
- Ensure adequate and effective PPE is provided, as per risk assessment
- Highlight the importance of incident reporting (including near misses)
- Provide information and training:
- Provide all relevant information, instruction and training for the tasks and activities new starters will be conducting
- Explain any risks they will be exposed to with sufficient detail of how to manage them
- Provide supervision:
- Supply adequate supervision
- Supervisors must be aware that new starters may not be confident with raising concerns with people they are unfamiliar with and may need to be led
- Supervisors will need to lead by example
- Check understanding:
- Supervisors must test that a new starter has the ability to conduct tasks safely, either through overseeing the work or through a formal methodology, eventually relaxing direct supervision until it is no longer required
- Ensure new starters know:
- Who to speak to with regards to raising concerns
- How any concerns should be raised
- What the emergency arrangements / procedures are
Extra Considerations
It is important to bear in mind that young people – between 16 and 18 – are particularly at risk due to their more acute lack of experience.
Migrant workers can similarly be at greater risk as they may also be dealing with cultural and language differences on top of navigating a new work environment.