Inducting Staff onto Your Farm

Employers and self employed farmers have a duty of care to the employees and contractors that work for them. Staff should feel confident and comfortable coming to work knowing they are not at risk of serious injury or death. To give staff this confidence, farmers must properly induct new staff, and consult with these staff over the duration of their employment, to ensure they know and understand all of the procedures on your farm. Inductions should be detailed and thoughtful and provide the opportunity for staff to ask any questions they might have.

 

OBJECTIVE

Learn how to properly induct staff onto your farm

 

BEST PRACTICE 

Employers and self-employed persons have a responsibility to induct new staff, contractors or family members onto their farms.

  • The induction should take new employees on a tour of the property and provide a detailed map, including locations of where the first aid kit is stored, where the incident/injury register is kept, where the toilets are and where you can safely store food
  • New employees should be introduced to the HR policies and procedures on the farm, including an employee’s rights and responsibilities
    introduced to the safety policies and procedures on the farm
    given an introduction to machinery, equipment and vehicles that they will be using during their employment on the farm
  • Given a chance to ask any questions that they may have related to your farm and its procedures
  • Employers should provide employees with inductions to new equipment, like tractors or vehicles
  • Employers should conduct regular safety meetings with their teams to discuss any issues or concerns they may have related to safety on farm
  • Employers should document and keep record of inductions, consultations, training and supervision

 

ACTIONS

  • There are actions you can take to ensure your staff are adequately inducted and consulted with
  • Ensure you have an induction process in place for when new employees start to work for your business, which includes a tour and map of your property, a run through of the HR policies in place, an introduction to the safety policies and procedures in place, particularly surrounding machinery and equipment, and an opportunity to ask questions
  • Have a plan to train your workers and record the training.
  • Set up a regular meeting with your staff to discuss workplace health and safety
  • Keep a record of on-site inductions, consultations, training and supervision
  • Advise workers of first aid and emergency processes on farm
  • Book a VFF farm safety consultancy to discuss and receive templates of safety documentation, team talks and details of the types of records you need to keep.

 

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Inducting Staff onto Your Farm