Here’s an eye-opening safety statistic: 44% of all workers’ compensation claims in the construction industry involve injuries to employees who have been on the job for less than a year. The average time lost per injury: 114 days.
That’s according to an analysis of workers’ comp claims in the 2026 Injury Impact report from Travelers Insurance. While restaurants have more first-year injuries (51%), no other industry comes close to construction in terms of severity and the amount of time lost.
So a good onboarding process isn’t just an issue of safety compliance; it’s a matter of profitability.
It’s a reality in the business that onboarding for new hires—especially at smaller and independent operations—might be as simple as signing some paperwork, putting on a hard hat and getting pointed toward the crew.
When injuries do occur, it’s probably not because they lacked the physical skills for the job: Most construction workers come onto a site knowing how to swing a hammer or handle materials.
What new workers don’t have is situational awareness—the background sense of where the hazards are on this particular site.
The most common injuries that occur in the first year, according to the Travelers analysis, reflect this: slips, trips and falls; being struck by objects; and overexertion—all issues of situational awareness.
There’s a second factor that makes the problem worse: New workers are often reluctant to ask questions or flag something that feels unsafe, especially in the early going when they’re still trying to prove themselves. A veteran crew member who spots a risk will say something. A new hire who spots the same risk may decide to work around it quietly rather than look uncertain in front of the crew.
Effective Onboarding
Effective safety onboarding doesn’t have to mean hours of training before anyone touches a tool. It’s about making good use of a new hire’s first day on the job.
Here are some onboarding best practices from safety and training companies, including Vector Solutions and Safety By Design.
Site-specific hazard orientation. On Day 1, walk new hires through the jobsite and point out the specific hazards. An OSHA 10-Hour or 30-Hour card tells a worker about hazard categories, but it doesn’t say anything about the excavation at the east end of the jobsite, the overhead crane schedule or the traffic pattern around the material staging area.
Task-specific PPE fitting and training. If someone will be working with tools that generate silica dust, for example, they will need a respirator that fits and a reminder why it matters. Hearing about the importance of safety directly from the boss is far more effective than a safety handout in their paperwork packet.
An explicit introduction to stop-work authority. New workers need to hear directly—not implied, not posted on a wall—that they should flag unsafe conditions, and that doing so is valued, not penalized. If the culture on your site doesn’t support this in practice, the policy doesn’t matter. And if they don’t hear it on the first day, they’ll wait until they witness the safety culture in action before participating in it themselves.
A clear answer to “who do I ask?” Make sure every new hire knows exactly who their point of contact is for questions, and that the person is actually approachable. An open-door policy that nobody uses isn’t a policy.
An assigned mentor. Pairing a new hire with an experienced crew member can speed up the process of becoming oriented to the specifics of a company culture, the jobsite and overall expectations, notes the blog of Miter, a construction software platform. The right mentor isn’t necessarily the most senior person on the crew. It’s someone who exemplifies the safety culture and has the personality to enjoy training a new hire.
Day 2 and Beyond
Onboarding doesn’t end after the first day. Here are more best practices for the weeks that follow:
Consistent follow-up. Conduct daily check-ins during the first week, tapering to a few times a week through the first month, then weekly through the first 60 to 90 days. These conversations catch small problems before they become bigger ones, and they align with the period when injury risk is highest. They’re also good for retention.
Toolbox talks targeted to first-timers. New hires are likely to encounter new situations for themselves—things like working at height, operating near heavy equipment, handling specific materials. Toolbox talks tied to those experiences land differently than general safety reminders.
Near-miss reporting without blame. A culture where workers report close calls is a culture that learns from them. New hires take their cues on this from how they see near-miss reports handled on their first few jobs.
Best Supply offers competitive pricing, delivers your materials on time and provides careful shakeout wherever you need it to keep your jobsite safe and productive. Let us help with your next project.