Tom Bosley, Chairman, National Timber Harvesting and Transportation Safety FoundationThe safety of the strapping young fellow you just hired in your logging business is now your responsibility. His enthusiasm to work hard and make a difference in your organization can be a great benefit to you. Or, if not properly trained, mentored, and guided, he can become injured—or worse.
It is a fact that over one half of all logging injuries happen to workers with less than one year on the job. Chalk it up to inexperience, youthful enthusiasm, or other factors, there needs to be ample effort to keep these new hires safe.
Did you know that on the Timber Harvesting and Transportation Safety Foundation web site, www. loggingsafety.com, there is a very comprehensive First – Year Safety Program module?
This program is an outline for orienting new employees during the crucial first year in the logging business, which Bob Shaffer developed with FRA’s Southwide Safety Committee—and THATS funding. The program consists of six modules to lead the logging contractor or hiring manager through a year of orientation and safety training for new hires.
Step 1: An intensive, first-day-on-the-job, general logging safety overview for the new employee, followed by specific job function training, as required by OSHA.
Step 2: A weekly series of 20 to 30 minute one-on-one safety training sessions to be presented during the first 6 to 8 weeks of employment, in a way to promote discussion and feedback.
Step 3: The new hire’s supervisor conducts a series of formal safety observation audits, unannounced, to uncover unsafe acts and to reinforce safe working practices. (The training module provides several downloadable Safety Observation Audit Forms for the employer’s use.)
Step 4: Promotes and provides details on the use of Safety Debriefings, to be conducted once each month throughout the remainder of the year, after Step 2 is completed. Their purpose is to reinforce Safety Audits, review general safety performance, discuss safety issues, and encourage feedback.
Step 5: The new employee participates in all regularly scheduled crew-wide safety meetings required by OSHA Logging Safety Regulations. Additional encouragement should be provided for the new employee to participate in industryor logging association-sponsored safety programs.
Step 6: Provide the new employee with a specially colored or distinctly marked hard hat and high-visibility safety vest to serve as a constant reminder to other workers that he is a high-risk, first-year crew member. After a successful 90-day “probationary” period, reward the new employee with a “regular” hard hat and safety vest at a crew-wide meeting.
This comprehensive, hands-on safety training program is built around easily obtainable, user-friendly safety training materials and presents a structured format to address the challenge. Some of timber harvesting’s foremost loss control experts participated in the development of this program for addressing new-hire safety issues. We hope a significant number of logging contractors will use this program when they bring new employees, and help lower the injury statistics for these vulnerable workers.
Tom Bosley
Chairman
National Timber Harvesting and Transportation Safety Foundation