In the 2021 HSER forum, the HSERs identified the number of new entrants as one of the top concerns. An outcome of the pandemic is the higher-than-usual percentage of new starts across our Industry. This, coupled with the exit of experienced staff has contributed to an increase in safety incidents.
So - what is industry doing and what can HSERs contribute to arresting this trend?
And how do you go about doing this?
The foundation of safety at any worksite is an induction – with the HSER role perfectly placed to advocate for comprehensive evidence-based induction processes that ensure each new employee begins their new position empowered to commence duties in a safe manner.
Following feedback from stakeholders from all areas of our industry, Safer Together developed the Industry Safety Induction (ISI) – a tool developed to streamline and standardise safety inductions for staff and contractors across industry.
As a ‘Standardisation’ Initiative, the ISI was developed and implemented with the intention of:
- Enhancing the safety competence of all personnel in the industry by giving new starters the knowledge of how to manage the common hazards specific to our industry, to enable them to carry out their duties in the safest manner possible (thereby improving safety performance), and to
- Define the standard of safe working behaviour that is expected of all personnel in the industry, and
- Driving consistency and cost efficiency in the delivery of safety induction training to all personnel in the industry.
In practice, the ISI allows companies to streamline their inductions to remove duplication and to consolidate the Health Safety Environment induction requirements that are applicable industry wide. The ISI forms the foundation of employee and contractor inductions across Industry, with the final induction process for all contractor/employees across industry following a similar formula:
- Industry Safety Induction (ISI) +
- Company-specific induction +
- Site-specific/Job-specific induction
*Note: There are exemptions for those deemed ‘Experienced Workers’. Follow link for detail.
Glenn Ross (INPEX) gave us a run-down on just how and why he sees the ISI as a foundation of the Induction process:
“The ISI offers close co-operation between the HSE and Learning & Development functions in a Company. This is essential because deployment of the ISI is more likely to succeed if it is integrated into your organisation’s existing Learning Management System (LMS), rather than being a stand-alone process.”
“Communication Is key – early involvement of your organisations contracting & procurement team is essential to ensure they can plan and coordinate getting consistent, clear, and timely messages about the ISI out to your supply chain through the appropriate contracting communication channels.”
“Clearly explain the experienced worker declaration form – Take the time at the outset to inform and educate all levels of your supply chain about the purpose of this process and conduct a regular and robust review of compliance to ensure it is being used as it was intended.”
Watch a short video on just how the ISI can work for HSEs in all Member Companies.
For companies, the ISI streamlines the induction process by:
- Reducing the time needed to induct new workers,
- Reducing the costs associated with worker inductions,
- Creating consistency across industry via industry-wide adoption, and
- Streamlining the induction process for Contractor companies.
The ISI is available for both face-to-face and online inductions, and is available for all employees across our industry.
Consult the Approved Program Providers for available dates. The Providers are also available to run the course at your location (by prior arrangement).
For more information on the ISI, or to sign up click here.
To read a Case-Study of Arrow Energy’s adoption of the ISI click here.
For more information on the ISI, email: [email protected].