Addressing New Workers’ Concerns: Job Skills and Safety Gaps

The recent labor shortage has created plentiful opportunities for new workers entering the trades and displaced workers from several other industries to be selective about the places that they choose for future employment. These “new” workers have their pick of several trade, labor, and professional occupational positions in construction, oil and gas, manufacturing, and many other high-risk industries and have the choice to make their safety in their workplace one of the top priorities in the selection process for a new employer.

Recruitment

The U.S. economy is always in a cycle. Unemployment hit a near 50-year low, just before it skyrocketed with the shutdowns resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. In a tight job market, “new” workers or workers displaced from other industries have their pick among many opportunities, so the overall “value proposition” of selecting YOUR company is essential.

Rule number 1 for worker recruitment is to be up-front and honest in the job description. In addition, consider focusing on any unique opportunities or training as well as your workplace benefits and rewards – especially rewards that stand out from the competition. However, being realistic and positive about the overall organizational benefits is only one part of the recruitment equation.

When “new” workers have choices, they will often choose work with higher pay and where the potential for harm to them on the job is low. In this case, an organization‘s workplace safety onboarding training offerings, organization safety climate, historical safety records, and on-the-job hands on training and mentoring programs can have a powerful influence over the company’s ability to attract and retain new worker talent to help them continue to thrive in their competitive markets.

Orientation and Onboarding Programs

Most companies have orientation and onboarding policies and procedures in place to help prepare and train new workers. These are two processes – orientation and onboarding – are two separate and distinct processes.

Employee orientation is a general introduction to your workplace and organization. Orientation to the workplace can usually be completed in less than a day and is usually similar for every employee. Employers should take workplace orientation time to assist new workers in completing necessary paperwork, have access to all required company resources and technology, and have learned about essential company programs, policies, and procedures.

Worker onboarding is generally a much more comprehensive process where new employees are assisted by the company with the transition into their job roles and to become part of their work team organization. Good onboarding programs can last up to 12 months and, in the most successful circumstances for worker retention and safety, include mentoring programs. The purpose of onboarding is to help build worker confidence in their job tasks and roles.

Think of new worker orientation as a practical, informational program and employee onboarding as preparing the worker for a safe and long tenure working for your company. Orientation allows new workers to be empowered with organizational information. While orientation activities are critical their ongoing education.

Mentoring Programs

On-the-job training (or mentoring) is a critical asset of every new worker’s learning process. A peer-to-peer mentoring can be one of a company’s greatest strengths in training new workers because it utilizes trusted employees to monitor, develop, and critique job critical skills and instill positive safety attitudes in line with an organization’s overall safety climate and programs. Mentors can focus efforts on skills along a critical path to successful company safety, productivity, and quality expectations in their training period, while simultaneously helping the company to monitor worker behaviors and conditions for immediate discussion and correction.

Internships, Trade Schools, and Vocational Training

Internships, trade schools, and vocational training programs teach new and/or transitioning workers and high school students, job skills needed for specific occupations as they complete their academic coursework. These programs can prepare valuable new workers for careers in fields such as high-hazard industries with added beneficial outcomes such as: increased high school completion, increased employment, and increased earnings,

As an extra benefit, these learning opportunities also have shown evidence of effectiveness at “training in” safety awareness and best practices into the curriculum such that these well prepared and trained new workers are ready to fit seamlessly into organizations that champion safety, hazard identification, and reduction of worker risk as core values. Many of these programs result in graduates becoming safety leaders the moment they step on the job site or into a facility, holding safety qualifications such as OSHA 10- and 30-hour certificates, baseline safety certifications, and specialized safety training certificates and knowledge.

Workforce Retraining

Workforce job retraining is one of the ways workers can reenter the workforce into new roles in safe and effective ways. Retraining means to train again in a new subject, for a new job, often at a new company or organization, where learning and development plays a critical, primary role in training workers that are new to any industry. Workforce retraining can mean the difference between costly injuries and even fatalities as these workers transition from less-risky jobs to ones requiring highly technical skills to keep themselves and others safe. Industries such as oil and gas, construction, energy, utilities, and manufacturing come with a high level of both physical and financial risk to workers and organizations, respectively. Rigorous workforce retraining is one of the best ways to mitigate those risks.

Worker Empowerment

Sometimes the difference between attracting the right workers comes down to the development and proven record of implementing good health and safety practices within an organization. Creating empowerment comes from implementing policies and procedures, and fostering trust, that all workers are capable of enacting practices that improve the safety of a workplace for employees.

Championing “stop work” when unsafe practices or conditions are observed, implementing risk assessments, performing safety audits, and implementing regular workspace inspections should be collaborative approach from management through the safety department and all the way to the line worker level. When incidents or near misses happen the focus of the resulting investigation(s) that take place should avoid the “blame the worker” approach and aim solidly at identifying and correcting underlying root causes so that these incidents do not happen again and that the workers can feel safe performing their everyday assigned tasks.

Changing How Safety Does Business

It is one thing to empower workers, but workers also need to feel that the safety professionals and collective safety department “has the back of the workers” at all times. Safety professionals need to transition from “drive-by” and “flyovers” at work sites and facilities and spend time where the work happens asking questions and understanding the issues and hazards the workers face every day. One of the best ways to give new and transitioning workers into a company’s business is to ensure that safety underlies everything that workers are expected to accomplish and that the company and the safety department is right there with them to get the job done safely, productively, and with quality while no one gets hurt.

Summary

Finding well-trained, motivated workers that are the right fit for an organization in today’s job market is most certainly a struggle. The importance of providing a level of comfort with the type and scope of work that a new worker will be asked to perform is critically important. Just as important is to ensure that new workers know that the organization takes their orientation, onboarding, mentoring, ideas, and concerns as seriously as anyone else in the organization – even top management. The ideas presented in this article are just some of the ways that we can prepare new and transitioning workers for the challenging landscape of a new career – with their safety and job knowledge as two of the foremost concerns.

Mariner Gulf & Consulting and Services has extensive experience in establishing safety management systems that are intended to maximize the overall safety and health of the workplace for organizations in every industry. We can assist with the programmatic components of evaluating potential high-hazard producing processes and assist your efforts in ensuring that each and every worker is able to come home safe at the end of the day.

James Junkin, CSP, MSP, SMS, ASP, CSHO is the Chief Executive Officer for Mariner-Gulf Consulting & Services, Chair of the Veriforce Strategic Advisory Board, master trainer, and keynote speaker.

Contact Information:

James A. Junkin, CSP, MSP, SMS, CSHO

[email protected]

504-373-0678