Zach:
Well, in some of the different industries, in that same report, restaurants have 53% of their claims attributed to first-year employees, construction has 47%, and transportation has 40%. So roughly half the claims that are being submitted are as a result of first-year employees, meaning that we have an issue going on there. I find that to be a good correlation that we are missing the mark when it comes to onboarding our new hires the correct way.

And so I would answer that question as, yes, they would be your highest risk level because they don’t know what they don’t know. It’s our responsibility as EHS professionals to make sure that they’re trained, prepared, and equipped to go into the tasks and duties that we are assigning to them.

[00:03:02]
Okay. So it sounds like no matter the industry, the first few months on the job are a critical time to set workers up for success. So let’s talk about what that looks like. Where do companies need to start when they’re bringing someone new into the fold? 

Zach:
It’s the hiring process and onboarding. I mean, it really all starts right there, even before you actually put the employee into the working atmosphere.

Even before you hire them, there are steps you can take to ensure that you are getting good people, the cream of the crop, from the employment pool.

If you’re going to hire somebody for a specific position, you really need to take a look at the job description and are we spelling out all of the different safety items that need to be accounted for in that job description?

Have a safety professional review the job description so that you have everything laid out on what you want this employee to do. But maybe we didn’t account for that this employee needs to be able to lift 75 pounds on their own. We want to actually put that in the job post so that we don’t hire somebody that is going to potentially be a strain on us down the road because we didn’t say that they must be able to lift this amount of a load, which is going to be a common duty that they have to perform.

Safety is becoming increasingly important during the hiring process to the actual employee or candidate who’s interviewing. About 29% of the workforce say they are very likely to ask about safety practices during a job interview. So you better have your ducks in a row when you’re talking to a candidate about your own safety programs, how they are going to affect that candidate, and maybe how they can get involved. 

[00:04:45]
That’s great advice for building a solid foundation. David, I know your team at Caglia puts a lot of thought into hiring with safety in mind. Can you walk us through what that looks like for you?

David:
Yeah, this is kind of an evolving process, and you made some really good points. One of them is that, as safety professionals, we’re often not involved in the hiring decision. But we want to make sure that those hiring managers consider what ultimately needs to be a value that employees have, and that is a safety culture that they value.

We do it in a couple of different ways. One is that we actually follow up on reference checks. That tells us a lot. We can confirm information and make sure that it’s consistent. So reference checking really does help to validate that.

Our managers use the first interview as a kind of technical interview. Can they meet the minimum requirements of the job? Then the second interview is much more about behavior, really trying to learn about what motivates that employee, who they are, and what they’re about. And one of the things we do is we say this a lot to our employees, not only during the hiring process, but we talk with them about our expectations, with regard to honesty, integrity, work ethic, and so forth in onboarding, during safety meetings. Because we know that if we don’t remind them that that’s what we’re all about, we’ll lose that kind of edge or intensity with our employees.

We have to be able to be nimble and address those things. And so those are some of the things that we’re doing. 

[00:06:27]
Oh, I love that. Starting with safety before someone’s even hired, but once they are, the real work begins after day one. What are some of the most important steps to help keep those first-year employees safe?

Zach:
To get into that, we have to talk about your audience, and I’ll probably allude to it several times throughout this discussion: understand your audience. When you’re training a team, a group, or a single individual, we all learn using different methods, and there’s this preconceived notion that the adult attention span is getting shorter and shorter.

And I think social media and different devices that we’re taking a look at on a day-to-day basis is, you’ll see, “Oh yeah, there’s only an eight-second attention span out there, and you know, so we have to like have all this micro content ready to go.”

But that’s not the case at all. There was a study that came out a few years ago that the average adult has an eight second attention span. It’s actually false, I am doing some research on that. In the actual study that was done, there was no concrete evidence that somebody did a study to determine an eight-second attention span.

Now, there is alternating attention. So if you’re driving while listening to a podcast, your attention is divided. You’re trying to take in the information from a podcast, but you’re also driving down the road, so you’re trying to be safe while doing so.

There’s selective attention. And that is, you know, browsing social media, but every once in a while, I’m going to cut out because I heard a joke that came across on the TV, and I thought it was funny. So I’m going to pay attention to that for a second.

Unintentional attention. This is what marketing teams all love to have, boom, a loud commercial comes on and grabs your attention, your ears, and your eyes. We got you for the next 30 seconds. That could be a way to grab some attention.

Intentional attention. So I’m going to turn the TV off, and I’m going to read my book. I’m diverting all of my attention to this book. That’s a really good form of attention at that point because there’s no alternating, there’s no other thing that’s distracting.

But sustained attention is what we all strive for as trainers. We want deep work with a state of creative flow.

So when do you achieve this? This is a very difficult thing to achieve. Do you achieve it by a lecture? Do you reach it by videos? Do you achieve it through discussions? There are many different ways of learning that are out there. That’s what we’re going for.

But what are some of the best processes that get there? 

So, reading, yes, if I’m reading a book that interests me, I’m going to probably retain a lot from that. If I’m reading a book of OSHA regulations that looks like stereo instructions, I probably will not retain a whole lot of that information, versus hearing words, seeing, or watching a demonstration.

Now, we’re starting to get more into some more specific items that will grab attention. Participating in a discussion but then actually simulating or doing the real thing. When it’s hands-on, and we’re actually getting involved, that’s where people learn the most.

So how can we apply some of these techniques? 

Well, when it comes to hearing and training techniques, a lot of that is made up of lectures, reading from binders, reading slides, and answering your own questions. We want actual participation, engagement, listening, and training techniques. That’s where we get into discussions a little bit more. Maybe some role-playing scenarios or some small group work.

But honestly, the best form of listening training techniques is telling stories and storytelling. We were all kids. We grew up hearing stories from our parents right before we went to bed. Or you know, Grandpa had stories for us as well, too, about back in the day or anything like me, I love those stories. I’m just hanging on every single word.

You just have to be a good storyteller. That’s not the easiest thing to do. So you know, when you’re storytelling, you have to have time for the information, but those emotional hooks are what you really want to get into people.

And you have to make it relatable as well too. Something that they can encode in their memory. 

So, I’d like to share my story about why I got into safety.

Years ago, when I was a kid, I was a latchkey kid, meaning that both my parents worked. So when I got home from school, I had my house key on the ring, on my backpack, and basically opened the door.

I was home for about two hours on my own. When I got home, I was always extremely hungry because I had one of those early lunches that happened at 11 o’clock, and that’s where lunch pizza didn’t do the trick all the time.

So one day, I was like, you know what? I’ve watched Mom do this several times: I’m going to make some french fries. I’m going to fry ’em up on the stovetop. And so I got a pot out, poured some cooking oil into the pot, and then I heard the dog barking outside. I’m like, what is she doing? So I walk out there, and I’ve already turned the burner on at this time, and I walked out back, and of course, she’s barking at a squirrel or something like that, trying to run up a tree to grab her and like Molly, get down from there. There’s no way you’re going to get that squirrel.

But I caught something out of the corner of my eye; talk about an attention grabber. This was definitely one: a large orange glow coming back from the kitchen. Turn around, and of course, that pot of oil had caught fire.

So I run back in, and I’m thinking to myself, what do I do? This is a kitchen fire. So, of course, what do I probably think I should do? The sink is right there. Turn the water on, turn around, and spray it down. Ah, but wait a minute. Sugar Creek Township Fire Department Firehouse 42, Captain Fisher came to talk to us when we were kids. And he spoke to us about grease fires, and this was the takeaway that I had. During that session he talked about if you ever encountered a grease fire, do not spray water on it. You need to either cover it or use a fire extinguisher.

So I remembered that we had a fire extinguisher underneath one of the cabinets, grabbed it, and kind of walked myself through it. Pull the pin, aim, spray, squeeze, sweep all that good stuff, and put the fire out. And you know, because of that whole training that I had from back in the day, even just the short blurb about kitchen fires and grease fires, I was able to potentially save our home. Maybe save my life at the same time, and that’s why I got into safety.

Now, my parents still ground me to this day, but you know, I’m alive. I’m alive. So that’s a good story that I like to share.

And hopefully, it’s one of those things that’s a takeaway, and it’s like, oh yeah, that would make sense. Of course, that’s what you would want to do in a kitchen fire. And maybe now that’s a story I’ve shared that hopefully gets passed along, and maybe it helps out somebody else.

[00:13:16]
Whoa. Wow. What a powerful example of how early safety lessons can stick with us for life. It really shows the impact of making safety personal and relatable.

That makes me think about the training itself. David, at Caglia, how do you strike a balance between general safety training and training that’s more specific to your operations?

David:
Yeah. There are some topics where we can use a standardized package, and they’re very effective. We use some of the KPA content for workplace harassment training, and we find that those trainings are well put together. They cause our employees to think, but they’re not too different from one employer to another.

And so we rely on the industry provided content. But then there’s these other topics where it’s like there’s not too many companies in Fresno where you’re going to have an early detection, early suppression, early notification fire system like we have.

So we want to show you our videos, and the reason we want to show you that is that there are some audible alarms that go off and some actions that are taken through robotics that, unless you see them, you’re not going to understand them.

So the blend of the two is really what we think makes a difference.

And then trying to make sure that it’s short content, not too long, but specific to what we’re doing. 

[00:14:44]
Ah, got it. So the balance between general and specific is key. Zach, I know you’ve seen a lot of creative approaches to delivering training. What are some ways companies can make sure their training actually reaches new workers where they are?

Zach:
So videos are always great, but more applications are becoming more and more frequent out there for training devices too. In fact, there’s one out there called Harness Hero that I think NIOSH put together. They also have a pocket guide and a ladder safety guide out there.

And those are some tools that are actually pretty neat in my opinion. In fact, it’s actually a game. And if you can get some of the younger generation into playing a safety game. They suddenly want to beat the game, but they’re learning simultaneously.

So with Harness Hero, you’re going through, and you’re identifying the deficiencies of a five-point safety harness. And then, at the end, you get to design a safety system where you select the lengths of the lanyards based on the height that they’re working off of. So you design, and you put that all on a stick figure, and you get to flip off the ledge, and if you designed it right, he’s saved. If you designed it wrong, yeah, I think you know what happens there. So it’s a neat little game. 

There are also virtual reality simulations that are becoming more and more prevalent as well. And once again, we’re putting the employee into the situation so that they can see it with their own eyes. Now, that’s a little bit more on the expensive side to actually put into a facility. I understand that costs and everybody has a budget out there that they have to work with, but it might be some type of invaluable system to you if you really need hands-on simulations for everything or you’re really having a difficult time trying to get to people.

There are also group participation games out there. I’ve taken some of the common subjects, such as hazard communication, and turned them into a little game that we played, almost like a Jeopardy-style game, where we answered questions about safety data sheets, container labeling, and what this GHS symbol stood for.

It’s helpful that way. And then, once again, hands-on exercises with actually doing. Doing actual actions is going to be the best form of training that you can do. You can put a forklift program in front of somebody and have them read it for 20 hours, and it will still be completely different to them once they hop on a forklift.

And then they have to experience steering with the rear wheels. You have basically three different levers of controls over here, and you know how you have to sometimes give them gas in order to actually operate the forks to go up and down, and are you driving with two feet, one on the gas, one on the brake, or one foot, you know, like you would in a normal car?

Everything’s a little bit different when you come to some of this equipment out there. So actually putting them in the situation, giving time to actually practice with the equipment that they’re going to be using is one of the best forms of training that you can do. 

[00:17:48]
Okay, so once someone is trained and up to speed, how do we keep that safety mindset alive? What are some effective ways to reinforce safety habits after those first few weeks on the job? 

Zach:
There are lots of different ways to go about this, but you can do this by empowering the employees. You can set up assessments and audits for them. You can have programs and policies and have them participate in drafting those policies, having them consider selecting PPE.

In the training portion, you can engage them with stories. You can also bring in somebody during the training to talk about their personal experiences working at the company.

Safety committee meetings are another way to incorporate people into the safety program, rotating members on and off the committee. If you’ve had a safety committee with the same five people on it for the last 15 years, it’s time to shake things up.

This is not to say that anybody needs to be demoted, but you should add some more people in, at least. Do reinforcement drills. I think drills are some of the best things that you can do as a company because the hands-on experience puts them right into the situation.

And you can also do a whole lot of measuring based on that. Such as maybe there’s a checklist that you have. Did we hit this, this, and this during this drill time? It. Not to say that you need to have the fastest time out there; that might not be the safest approach, but did it take us two hours to evacuate the plant or did it take us 20 minutes to evacuate the plant?

There’s a big difference there, you know. So is that knowledge getting from the training they have taken, all the way down to actually being practical experience when they are out on their own?

[00:19:30]
David, from your perspective, are there any creative reinforcement techniques or programs that you’ve found that are especially effective at Caglia to keep safety top of mind?

David:
Yeah, I’ll just do it real quickly. You know, you talked about evacuations, which are drills that are often done inside industries and so forth. We want to be able to get everybody out safely, but there’s a lot more to that.

We found that there’s a smaller group of people, really the supervisors and the leads, with whom we need to have more focused drills and work with our employees so that they feel like it’s an immediate response.

So, we’re thinking about how we can train employees so that when an emergency happens, they go from panic to calculated response more effectively.

We want our employees to respond to a situation where their focus doesn’t become narrow, to just focus on what’s in front of them. Our industry has a lot of risks around it, regardless of whether it’s during an emergency response.

And so doing those more frequent, shorter, smaller drills, is very helpful in increasing the confidence level of our supervisors and leads and our management team so that we’re better prepared for response. So that’s really what the purpose of that is. 

[00:20:56]
David, Zach, this has been such a great conversation. I love how both of you tied safety back to real people and real stories. It’s clear that getting new hires on board with safety isn’t just about compliance. It’s about setting a tone that lasts for their entire career, whether they stay with you at your company or move somewhere else. Thanks again for sharing your insights, and thanks to everyone listening. Stay safe out there.