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Worker Sacked for Doing Online Safety Inductions Properly

Worker Sacked for Doing Online Safety Inductions Properly

Construction Engineer OnlineWell not really but perhaps they should be – and that is no more riduclous than believing that everybody is doing them properly! If the new disruptive safety movement says we should reward renegades, creativity and innovation then it is exactly the kind of compliant, time wasting and pointless behaviour that should be punished!
There was shock and horror in the safety world when it was reported in the press that a Sydney man was charged over alleged sale of 400 fraudulent safety induction white cards to construction workers……… Um, this has been going on for years!!
Each State in Australia has a minimum requirement that a version of the white card be obtained before any person can be employed on a construction site. It has long been considered a bit of a joke in the construction industry since most construction companies will also force people to undertake their own induction before starting work. Some Tradesmen may therefore end up being re-inducted several times a week!
It was hard to swallow the response by Police over the magnitude and ramifications of this fraud, with one Officer quoted as saying: “It’s a huge risk because they’re unqualified, they’re untrained. As we know, the construction industry is a very high-risk area…. So they’re performing tasks out there which they’re not trained to do and again that places the safety of their colleagues and members of the community at significant risk”.
Anybody who has ever obtained their white card (or any online induction qualification) would be ‘laughing out loud’ at that statement. It is well considered in the industry that these types of online inductions are a waste of time, not conducive to learning and designed only to protect those who require them. They are commonly done by spouses, children (my kids used to love doing them for me) or the Office Admin Person (who soon learns how to rapidly click through the modules and pass the exams in minutes) – after all, what smart company would tie up valuable and skilled Trade Resources by making them sit in front of a computer and waste time and effort, going over the basic mind numbing stuff they already know,  just to tick another box and cover somebody’s @rse?
Dr Rob Long puts it well: “Is the fraud the replication of the card or the claim that it actually means something”

It would be much more time and cost effective, make no difference to real safety and be better for the health of construction workers if these induction cards were supplied in every box of breakfast cereal! Despite it’s exposure to fraud and ineffectiveness, there is so much sunk cost in the system that it will never change – can you imagine the attribution of obvious root cause if the system were abandoned and a new construction worker was injured soon after.
Love to hear your thoughts and stories……………

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