Across Ontario, summer hiring is about to pick up. Students will step into new jobs. Seasonal workers will join busy teams. Is your workplace ready to ensure their safety?

New workers will confront unfamiliar tasks, equipment, schedules and expectations. Many situations will present hazardous conditions.

For employers and supervisors, summer hires bring serious responsibility. The unfamiliar must be made familiar. Every new worker must be trained to understand work hazards and proper control measures, know their health and safety rights and employer duties and in the doing gain confidence to speak up and come home safe at the end of their work day.

Register for life saving worker health and safety awareness training today.

 

Workplace hazards aren’t theoretical

WHSC has shared painful stories over the years showing what can happen when new workers enter unsafe workplaces without the protections or training they need or deserve.
 

• One of those stories is Adam Keunen’s. Adam was 17 years old and in his first week of a high school co-op placement at an auto recycling plant in West Lincoln, Ontario, when he was killed after being crushed under a front-end loader.
• Brigitte Serre, a 17-year-old from Montreal, Quebec was found slain in a back room of a gas station where she was working alone on her first overnight shift. One of the suspects in the murder was a former employee who knew Brigitte.
• Wayne Affleck, another student, was killed in the electrical room of a solar farm in Sunderland, Ontario.

These stories are difficult to revisit. They should be. They remind us that worker health and safety must be built into every part of the job, from prevention and supervision to proper instruction that ensures new workers aren’t left guessing in a dangerous situation.

What new workers need to know

A new worker may not know what questions to ask. They may worry about seeming uncooperative or inexperienced. They may assume the employer would never ask them to do something unsafe.

This is why basic worker awareness training is the best place to start.

New and young workers should understand:
 

• Their right to know about hazards and their proper control measures.
• Their right to participate in health and safety.
• Their right to refuse unsafe work.
• How to report hazards, injuries, violence, harassment or unsafe conditions.
• What personal protective equipment is required, when to use it and how to use it properly.
• Who their supervisor, health and safety representative or joint health and safety committee members are, and how each can help address workplace health and safety concerns.
• And what hazard- and workplace-specific health and safety training they may need to address hazardous exposures in addition to awareness training, training such as WHMIS, confined space entry, and working at heights.

A quick orientation isn’t enough

Ontario law requires employers to provide new workers with health and safety awareness training to protect their health and safety. WHSC reminds workplaces that awareness training must be more than online information if it’s going to be effective and ensure learning.

That is especially important for summer hires.

A short tour may introduce a worker to the workplace but it doesn’t prepare them to handle the pressure of a busy shift, an aggressive customer, a chemical exposure, a machine hazard, a task at heights or a supervisor rushing a task.

New workers need time, practice, repetition, competent supervision and effective training so they are never left to figure out workplace hazards on their own.

WHSC training can help

WHSC’s Worker Health and Safety Awareness training helps participants understand Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, workplace rights and responsibilities, the role of health and safety representatives and joint health and safety committees, common workplace hazards and how controls can help protect workers.

For workplaces preparing to hire students, seasonal staff or inexperienced workers this summer, now is the time to plan training—not after the schedule is full, not after the rush begins and certainly not after someone gets hurt (or worse).

WHSC also offers a broad catalogue of health and safety training programs, including supervisor training, Certification training for joint health and safety committees, hazard- and industry-specific courses for new workers and all workers, virtual training and in-person options across Ontario. And now all workplace mental health training is $40 when booked by June 30.

Make summer work safer and healthier too

Young workers deserve clear instruction, meaningful protection and the confidence to raise concerns without fear.

Before summer hiring begins, ask:

• Have new workers received proper awareness training?
• Do supervisors understand their duties?
• Are hazards and their controls clearly explained before work begins?
• Do workers know who to go to with concerns?
• Is training reinforced after the first day?

Let’s make sure new and young workers begin with the knowledge, support and protection they need.

Register new summer hires for WHSC Worker Health and Safety Awareness training or contact WHSC to discuss training options for your workplace.

Register today: https://www.whsc.on.ca/Training/Training-Registration

Need more information? 
Contact a WHSC Training Services Representative in your area.
Email: contactus@whsc.on.ca
Visit: whsc.on.ca
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