The $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill is good news/bad news for construction. While its huge investments in transportation, manufacturing and other major projects are anticipated to create millions of jobs, the industry’s recovery following the pandemic remains slow due to higher materials costs and shortages of skilled labor.
It’s critical to recognize the dangers of onboarding a large influx of workers in a short period of time, especially when many of them may be new to the industry—so how can we safely fill this gap?
1. Initiating open lines of communication between the hiring organization and contractors: From signing contracts to exchanging feedback after the completion of projects, maintaining transparent communication between parties is critical to safe work practices. Hiring organizations must clearly communicate their expectations from the onset of the engagement, while contractors should feel comfortable voicing not only their concerns about hazards they identify, but also suggestions for improving safety within the organization.
If employees feel unsafe about a work task, they should have the right to invoke their stop-work authority. Organizations endorsing this initiative should investigate the employee’s concern and ensure adequate controls are in place so the work can be performed safely and without repercussions.
2. Bridging written policies and training sessions for onsite work: Businesses should constantly evaluate their written safety programs to ensure that policies remain up-to-date, as both operations and how workers perform tasks change over time. In addition, organizations must require training that measures individual-level qualifications to verify that each employee is knowledgeable and prepared to work onsite. Every task that workers perform should relate back to a training session they received. Regular toolbox talks and collaborative hazard analysis can help workers translate what they’ve learned about safety into protecting themselves as they begin to perform tasks onsite.
3. Leveraging digital solutions to minimize risk: Virtual training sessions can help organizations push through staffing shortages efficiently. By providing electronic training, companies can onboard large numbers of new employees while still ensuring that each individual receives proper training. Organizations should also carefully review injuries and fatalities in the event they occur; data collection and analysis can offer insights into the circumstances under which incidents occur, so action can be taken to lower the likelihood of these situations being repeated in the future.
4. Focusing on creating a positive safety culture: With high demand to fill construction jobs quickly, there is added pressure to get workers onsite immediately. However, safety must always be prioritized over productivity and quick onboarding. Leadership should encourage employees to speak up about how comfortable they feel regarding the safety culture at their workplace. For organizations looking to create safer work environments, receiving feedback from employees through perception surveys can help executives to make improvements to the safety culture based on how on-the-ground workers are experiencing it as they perform their tasks.
By focusing on training that ensures employees are fully prepared to work onsite and building an engaged safety culture, organizations can minimize risk throughout the onboarding process and beyond.
