Mitigating Risk for Short-Service and Seasonal Employees

Each year, companies rely heavily on short-service workers to meet the holiday demand.

When the supply of available workers fails to meet the high demand, it is more likely that the hiring process will be expedited. Many companies will attempt to onboard new hires into their role as quickly as possible, but they must be prepared to recruit and train workers efficiently. Safety should never take a backseat to production. Rather, companies should be executing safe production.

Employers should be focusing on the predictability and preventability of serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs) to help reduce risk for workers. Prevention involves several key areas, including access to accurate data, a top-down culture alignment on safety, employee engagement, and proper training and onboarding.

Using Data to Mitigate Risk
Data analysis plays a critical role in mitigating the risk of SIFs. An ISN analysis of data from 55,000+ recordable incidents on SIFs among contractors showed that short-service employees, those who have been in their roles for shorter than 6 months, are associated with a higher incident rate.

Understanding the factors contributing to past holiday season incidents and near misses offers direction to leadership on what actions must be taken to reduce SIFs and processes to eliminate risk factors. Consider a thorough risk assessment to evaluate your programs and processes.

Promoting Effective Safety Culture
A key to reducing SIF incidents is promoting an effective safety culture. A positive safety culture begins with commitment from leadership. When facing a labor shortage or onboarding an influx of seasonal workers, companies may be inclined to place less experienced employees into supervisory positions. This practice can compromise safety or safety culture as supervisors are typically the people ensuring safe work practices are consistently implemented and followed by their employees.

Implementing written policies and investing in training and education to protect workers is the first step in building an effective safety culture. But leaders also need to seek feedback from frontline workers, who are the individuals exposed to workplace hazards and at risk of SIFs.

Seasonal employees can suffer from the physical exhaustion of working extended hours and risk mental fatigue. Strong leadership can address issues and support employees to encourage a culture that works to actively build safer working environments.

Management can support seasonal workers by:

• having an injury, illness and fatigue prevention program in place.
• encouraging employees to take frequent breaks.
• providing workers with proper equipment and resources.
• empowering individuals to report safety deficiencies and improvement ideas.
• prioritizing training on processes and procedures.

Efficient Recruitment and Training
If companies force new hires into their roles without the proper understanding of safety training and onsite risks, management can jeopardize their new workers and increase the likelihood of serious injuries and fatalities.

Despite the need to fill the holiday labor gap, companies need to prioritize the safety of their new employees with in-depth, rigorous safety training and testing. When it comes to holiday workers, training and proper onboarding should be prioritized regardless of length of employment or the urgency of the project.

Leadership should implement a robust training process for both safety policies and procedures as well as performance evaluations to ensure each employee has the proper skillset for the task they are expected to perform.

Virtual training can help onboard large numbers of new workers while still ensuring that all individuals are receiving proper training. Utilizing digital training through learning management systems can minimize time on-site, help companies keep track and better manage which trainings are required and completed, and when updated courses need to be added. Providing accessible training electronically to employees and short-service workers can have a positive effect on safety performance and lead to cost and time savings.

Training Resources and Tools
Using a purpose-built contractor management platform such as ISNetworld® can help companies manage training delivery, training records and certifications, and facilitate communication in a way that is easy to track and maintain. By bridging the gap between contracted and full-time employees, employers can identify gaps in their onboarding and site management processes for increased visibility into potential risks.

ISNetworld employee-level tools and services help Hiring Clients, contractors and suppliers ensure employees have the training, competencies and qualifications required to perform their job duties.

ISN’s Online Training Tool allows employees and contractors to complete a hiring organization’s training remotely. Common training topics include site orientations, critical life-saving rules, and stop work authority.

Through ISN’s Learning Management System (LMS), contractor customers have access to complementary, high-quality computer-based training materials to satisfy the competency requirements.

ISNetworld also contributes to onboarding efficiencies with the QuickCheck Tool, allowing contractors to demonstrate compliance across all requirements, including training, background checks, and drug and alcohol. Contractor employees are issued complimentary ISN-ID cards that are scanned upon arrival to a hiring organization’s location. This eliminates the manual process of producing documentation for each contractor employee.

Let ISN Help
ISN’s global contractor management platform, ISNetworld, supports an extensive network of nearly 700 Hiring Clients that leverage the platform’s tools and data to connect with, prequalify and monitor more than 75,000 contractors and suppliers.

If you are a current ISN Hiring Client subscriber, contact your account representative to engage online training tools and support evaluating your organization’s safety culture.

If you are a Hiring Client interested in learning more about how ISN can help you reach your contractor management goals, request a demo of ISNetworld.