Protecting new workers is a tall order, requiring attention to a number of issues. But workplaces that want to successfully mitigate the risk to new hires would be wise to take steps to address three issues: common language, culture, and the concept of human factors

Common language

Hazards and stop-work authority aren’t the only things new hires need to learn about. They also need to be taught the language of the workplace. Otherwise, they may not know how to speak up, and may not be able to understand crucial safety conversations.

Every workplace has its own set of technical terms, slang, acronyms, and other phrases that employees understand and outsiders don’t. Onboarding a new employee isn’t just about teaching them what to do—it’s also about teaching them the vocabulary of the workplace.

When recently hired employees show up at their new job, they bring with them a wide range of assumptions about which hazards are dangerous, what constitutes a safe or unsafe action, and the value of safety protocols. They may even have differing understandings about what basic safety words mean. That’s why it’s so important to teach new hires the common language of safety in your workplace.

As an article in Safety Decisions defines it: “A safety language is a collection of words, terms, and phrases that can be used and understood by everyone to articulate either a potential hazard or a desirable behavior. In short, it’s a common understanding” of what safety words mean and how safety works. It makes sure everyone has the same definition for keywords, phrases and ideas.

It’s easy to overlook the value of a common safety language. After all, surely everyone knows what a “hard hat” is, and everyone surely understands what it means when a supervisor says, “This task is tricky so make sure you take your time.”

The problem is that no, in fact, not everyone knows these things. Most folks know these things, but for the handful of new hires who don’t, using words and phrases they don’t fully understand can create a sense of ambiguity or confusion, and these human factors will compound an already dangerous situation to make it that much riskier.

And you’d be surprised at how many new workers don’t understand, or fully believe in, more advanced concepts like human factors and other safety issues. Taking the time to explain these things to them—and to get their buy-in—will make these new hires safer in the first weeks and months on the job. It will also make it easier to communicate additional safety issues to them, and it will help integrate employees into the company’s safety culture.

Culture

Safety culture is like the air we breathe—when the air quality is fine, you barely notice it. But if it’s polluted, it affects everything you do.

As a white paper on safety culture and climate points out, positive safety culture is linked to improved safety outcomes as well as more consistent, predictable performances across the board. When it’s working, you hardly notice that things are running smoothly. But when cultural issues are causing production processes to grind their gears, it’s all anyone wants to talk about.

You never know how a new hire will affect a company’s safety culture. Will they be a tree that helps purify the air, or will they belch exhaust throughout the workplace? You also don’t know the impact that culture will have on the new employees. Will it reduce their willingness to speak up if they feel unsafe or empower them to look after themselves and their peers? How you integrate new workers into the worksite’s safety culture can dramatically affect the answer to these questions.

A new hire’s first weeks in the workplace can inform their attitudes and interactions with others for years to come. It’s important for frontline leaders—especially a new hire’s immediate supervisor—to convey a certain set of values. Employees who have just joined the company see that safety is a priority when it’s discussed at a toolbox talk. They see it when protective equipment is used whenever it’s required. They see it when safety processes are followed, and when workers who make safety missteps are spoken to in a frank but positive tone rather than being yelled at or blamed. And if these things don’t happen? Then they see that maybe safety isn’t so important in this workplace after all.

You can say what your culture and values are until you’re blue in the face, but new hires will only believe what you show them. So make sure you’re putting your words into action. And don’t overlook the value of consistency. If workers see that safety is important on day one and two, but by day three things get busy and safety is tossed by the wayside, it shows that safety is a nice-to-have and not a primary value. It can take years to undo a first impression like that.

Before onboarding new employees, safety professionals should ask themselves three questions:

• What values do I want to demonstrate to new workers?
• How am I going to demonstrate those values?
• Who else—coworkers, supervisors, the leadership team—can reinforce or undermine those values?

The answers to these questions will help identify where you’d like your safety culture to be heading and who can play a role in getting there. Because providing new hires with a positive and consistent introduction to workplace culture is incredibly important for a number of reasons. Employees regularly cite company culture as a contributing factor to staying or leaving their place of employment, and getting off on the right foot can reduce turnover as well as save lives.

Concept of human factors

Human factors are everywhere, and they’re a clear and constant danger for all employees. They’re also an especially large problem for new hire safety.

Looking out for human factors in the workplace can function in a similar way to hazard recognition. Certain tasks or processes are unavoidably frustrating, or tiring or must be completed with a degree of speed. Experienced workers may recognize that these issues are a built-in part of the job and won’t take the frustration personally. Or they will recognize the need to take a break after a strenuous task. But new workers won’t, and these unexpected human factors can wreak havoc on new hires who aren’t prepared for them.

Workplaces that are serious about safety have likely implemented some sort of human factors mitigation strategies. Maybe supervisors highlight human factors in toolbox talks, or the safety manager mentions them during safety meetings. Ideally, the workplace has also followed best practices and conducted proper human factors training in order to teach workers how to recognize and respond to rushing, fatigue and other factors in real time. (One added benefit to this training: it makes the smaller intervention strategies like toolbox talks much more effective and keeps workers safer 24/7.)

But new workers? They won’t have gone through human factors training. They’ll hear phrases like “rushing” and “mind on task” and won’t understand that these words have very specific meanings. Or they’ll hear a supervisor say, “It’s the end of the week so make sure you pay attention to your level of fatigue,” and they won’t recognize just how important it is to do. And they definitely won’t know how to react if they suddenly notice that they are, in fact, getting tired and clumsy at the end of the day.

One of the most overlooked aspects of new-hire safety is bringing them up to speed on human factors. “Hopefully, you’ll have a human factors training vendor that will be a long-term partner, offering ongoing support for new worker onboarding. In these cases, be sure to talk to your trusted advisors whenever you bring new hires into the workplace. And regardless, there are proactive steps you need to take to bring new hires up to speed.

And if you don’t have outside help to rely on, you’ll need to do it all yourself—so make sure your onboarding plan includes a section on getting new hires to buy into the concept of human factors and then educating them on the human-factor realities of the workplace.

This blog post is an excerpt that has been adapted from the safety guide Fitting in Fast: Making a Safe Workplace for New Hires, which takes a deep dive into new worker safety. It offers strategies to prevent new-hire injuries, offering research and best practices to support a sustainable approach to protecting new workers.