Staffing companies may not insure workers have proper safety training

Just because you hire contract workers from a staffing company doesn’t mean that your obligation to assure that they are properly trained in safety is any less.

That is an important point made by Dave Hoover in the current Forklift Training Systems newsletter.

Dave notes that “the true expertise of staffing companies is their ability to find qualified people and match them to a particular employer’s open positions.”

Employers should not assume that workers provided by those staffing companies have been adequately trained in safety, especially since “OSHA requires that forklift certification be site and equipment specific.

“Previous training at a past employer will not likely cover the responsibilities of the host employer, since their site, loads, attachment, layout, rules and trucks may be different,” Dave says.

Here are some tips for dealing with these kinds of situations:

1) Ensure you have a detailed contract outlining the responsibilities of each company in great detail.

2) Ensure operators are certified for your site and your forklift equipment and are completely competent to operate it. Don’t assume someone else is responsible for this part, be sure it gets done.

3) Supervise operators to ensure they are working safely; make sure all forklifts being used are safe to operate and enforce the rules of safe operation.