Employee induction

Table 3.5 Feedback form for use during the safety expectation alignment component of new employee induction...

New employees will come to a workplace with a set of expectations, and some of these will relate to safety. Employees in the workplace will also hold attitudes and expectations about new employees and about organizational processes associated with the arrival of new employees. A new employee induction program can explain to new employees the nature of their expectations and how these are perhaps distorted, and can place them at risk. However, a far better way to deal with the safety risks associated with new employee expectations is to measure expectations and also acquire information from current incumbents and feed the information back to new employees. This way they can understand exactly how their views and their expectations compared to what job incumbents are saying. New employees also need to be informed about all the safety issues associated with the job they are entering and informed about the job s safety risk profile. While much of this information should be readily available, using a safety specific exit survey process may capture additional information which can either be used to correct the issue or used to alter the incoming employee to the issue. 

What are the characteristics of graduate mentors These will depend very much on the focus of the scheme. In terms of organizational level, for example, a more experienced peer-mentor would probably suffice if the purpose of the scheme is induction only. If, however, the purpose of the scheme is to identify and stimulate high-potential employees, the mentor might have to be one or two ranks more senior than the graduate. This would allow for more qualified decisions to... 

All employees must be given health and safety induction training when they start work. This can be combined with other useful information (eg pay, leave, and hours of work). It needs to cover basic health and safety such as first aid and fire safety. 

Examine the need for refresher and induction courses for new employees (permanent and temporary staff, consultants and contractors). 

The chemical industry has come to realize that universities cannot turn out graduates adequately educated in the fundamentals of science or engineering and at the same time trained to step immediately into any one of many specialized industrial jobs. This is true of literature chemists as well as other kinds of chemists. Most of the larger industrial concerns have also come to realize the value of a carefully planned program for the induction, the orientation, and the special training required to fit the new employee to his highly specialized job. 

Cohort Definition and Follow-Up Period A variety of sources of information are used to identify workers exposed to a particular workplace hazard, to construct an occupational history, and to complete the collection of information necessary for tracing (see below). It is essential that the cohort be well defined and that criteria for eligibility are strictly followed. This requires that a clear statement be made about membership of the cohort so that it is easy to decide whether an employee is a member or not. It is also important that the follow-up period be carefully defined. For instance, it is readily apparent that the follow-up period should not start before exposure has occurred. Furthermore, it is uncommon for the health effect of interest to manifest itself immediately after exposure, and allowance for an appropriate biological induction (or latency) period may need to be made when interpreting the data. 

Often health and safety legislation will require employees to be trained for the work they are undertaking. Associated with this prestart training will be a socialization processes (sometimes referred to as an on-boarding or induction processes) which have general objectives, such as introducing the new employee to the organizations safety policies and procedures. As with recmitment and selection processes. 

Burt and Stevenson (2009) and Burt et al. (2009) examined employees perceptions of organizational processes and how these are associated with their reactions to new employees. Perceptions of recruit and selection processes are discussed in Chap. 5, and perceptions of socialization and prestart training processes are discussed in Chap. 6. Both chapters note how a perception that organizational processes helps ensure safety can be associated with a lowering of risk perceptions, a decrease in behaviors which should ensure safety, and thus an overall increase in workplace safety risk. Scales used to measure perceptions of tmst in selection process, trust in induction processes, and employees reactions to new employees (compensatory behaviors) are published in the appendix of Burt et al. (2009). 

New employee Job specilic safety iirfomiation Induction and nestait training Awareness of, and coping with, specific risks and hazards... 

The reasons for the use of realistic safety preview processes during recmitment, selection, and induction The safety risks if new employees have unreahstic safety expectations... 

Organization to communicate realistic information about the ability of recmitment, selection, prestaring training and induction processes to ensure new employees will work safely Tmsting organizational processes to deliver new employees that will work safety, based on assumptions about their effectiveness, is extremely dangerous... 

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