Your Best Introduction Is Your Safety Induction

By Author: markpakshie
Total Articles: 14
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Your first opportunity - and probably your best - to establish the kind of relationship you want with your employees and contractors is your safety induction. For many of your employees, this is the first time they have had a personal interaction with your organisation. As we all know, first impressions last - so make the most of it!
By communicating that you are serious about safety, your employees and contractors are more likely to adopt the same attitude. Likewise, if your safety induction is poor and communicates a casual approach, that attitude is more likely be adopted by your new employees.

Pictures this!
Your warehouse has just taken on two new contractors, James and Taffy, to help relieve the growing workload. Before they can get to work the warehouse manager throws on a 45 minute training video, hands them a sheet of paper confirming that they have viewed and understood the material and leaves them to it. However, having never met before they do a very human thing - they get to know each other. Now's as good a time as any. They both know this stuff anyway, they've taken dozens of inductions before.

And ...
... they're right. They do know it all. But what's happened is that the manager and indirectly, the company, has begun to establish a casual attitude towards safety in the new contractors. And it will be hard to change it.

Now picture this!
James and Taffy are told they have work at your company and are both given a password to complete an online safety induction course before they arrive on site. It's an interactive course that they need to complete online and requires them to answer questions correctly as throughout the course. If they have trouble answering a question, they are redirected to the relevant information and asked a different question before they continue. After successfully completing the course, they are issued with a certificate which they print and bring to your site.

Now, not only are James and Taffy already inducted before they arrive on site, but you will know that they read and understood the course material. Furthermore, you will also know of any areas that they may have had trouble with.
The contractors can also see that you take safety seriously and expect them to do the same.

Finding the solution
There are a number of online software solutions for safety induction. Some are better than others, some will more suited to your needs than others. If you do a Google search using the keywords, "Online Safety Induction" or "Online Induction Software" you should find a number of solutions both in the organic and paid links. Check them out and see what looks good.

Our online safety induction training program works equally well for both employee induction and contractor induction. Induction training can also take different forms at your place of business. For more information please do visit our website.