Summer Hire Safety Considerations

With seasonal hiring comes new safety considerations. This is your opportunity to introduce safe work practices to our future workforce. Young workers can be eager, more familiar with new technologies, and full of innovative ideas.

They can also be anxious to impress, nervous about asking questions, and have a “get-it-done” attitude that can be a recipe for workplace injuries.

All employees have the right to a safe and healthful workplace, however, workers with less experience may not be as familiar with workplace hazards as their more experienced counterparts. Providing proper training, partnering new employees with more experienced employees, and making sure they know to whom they should report workplace hazards and injuries are just the basics of making a summer workplace safer for the young worker

An effective way to get employees to understand the risks is to explain the number of injuries each year. Young workers, under 25, are twice as likely to have an emergency room visit as their more experienced co-workers. A US teen gets injured on the job every 9 minutes and a total of 335 young workers were killed in 2013. Basic OSHA compliance and a review of the actual injury causes in your industry can help to focus your efforts where they will be most effective at reducing employee injuries.

Help to start a young worker out on a safe and healthful career. More resources are available at Federal OSHA https://www.osha.gov/youngworkers/employers.html or contact any of us at Propel Insurance to learn more about managing your work comp risks.

Corinna Kupelwieser

Corinna designs data-driven safety programs to reduce workplace risk and injuries. She is an award-winning and sought after speaker on the topic of workplace safety and Workers’ Comp loss control.
More about Corinna...