New and Current Employee Orientations – Safety – It Really Does Matter
As an employer, prioritizing new employee orientation (and current employee refreshers) topics can be challenging. Increasingly tight school budgets caused by unprecedented employee shortages, astronomical medical inflationary costs, increasing insurance premiums, and increasing costs of operating schools (as just a few illustrative points) can hamper how well you can serve students and employees. In this context, the best approach to combatting workplace injuries and associated costs is to create and maintain a foundational workplace safety culture – it really does matter.
Among the key items to consider in employee orientations and back-to-school refreshers are the following communications, reminders, drills, and equipment:
- Emergency Expectations and Drills: Training in and access to emergency protocols, keeping in mind fidelity of drills and de-briefings.
- Tabletop Emergency Drills: Using tabletop exercises from MSGIA/SEC (coming this fall)!
- General Safety Equipment: Identifying where general safety equipment is located, emphasizing the importance of using it correctly and returning it to its proper location.
- Stepstool and ladder locations for easy accessibility.
- Fire extinguisher locations.
- Office/Work Equipment: Training on items that staff will be using, such as paper cutters (always put the blade down when done using).
- Maintenance and kitchen staff – focus on specific equipment and tool training.
- Work Orders: Reminder of district/schoolwork order system for classroom and building repairs and assistance.
- Safety Data Sheets: Do all employees know what a safety data sheet is, where to find it, and how to read it?
- Do employees understand why they should not bring personal chemicals (i.e., hand sanitizer)? Remember, once it is in the building, a safety data sheet is needed.
- Lifting and Slips/Falls: Share plan for annual training on proper lifting techniques, (including setting items down) and how to prevent slips and falls (the number one cause of claims in MT school districts).
- Safe Schools: Identify expectations of Safe Schools online courses for the year (how to access them, what courses are required, timeline, etc.). It is a great tool for completing the annual required training and supplementary courses.
- How to Report a Claim:
- Report all incidents immediately to a supervisor (not a co-worker). Leave a message if need be. The statute requires a report within six days of the incident to the work comp carrier.
- Clarify where forms are in the building, district office, and online.
- Be specific – share all details of the incident, including injured body part(s), equipment used, what task was being conducted, etc.
- Sign the report (electronic signatures are acceptable).
- Safety Committee: Is the district (and school, if it is a large district) safety committee in place with a point-person to set agendas (identifying safety concerns and focusing on solutions), facilitate meetings, ensure minutes are posted in each building, etc.? Encourage staff to be involved in the safety committee; it is a great collaborative approach to engage employees in building a positive workplace safety culture cemented in collective responsibility.
- Open Dialogue: Create an environment that fosters asking questions, reporting unsafe situations, and engaging in solution-oriented approaches that focus on problems, not individuals. Return to newsletter