First-day checklist for a new farm worker

The number of tasks your new worker will do alone in the first week is the number of training lines on the first-day list. Each line gets a trainer’s name and a date before the worker does that task alone. In the US agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector in 2015, about one in five injuries and illnesses that cost days away from work happened to someone with the employer under three months. That was 3,820 of 18,660. In a Colorado survey of 72 dairy workers, those trained in their own tasks were four times less likely to have been hurt in the past year. The lines for gear, keys and paperwork give you a record. Only the training lines match what that survey linked to fewer injuries, so count the tasks first and then name one trainer for each.

What did the Colorado survey link to fewer injuries?

Researchers interviewed 72 workers from 15 dairies in four Colorado counties, privately and in the language each worker chose. Most were Mexican-born, Spanish-speaking men, and 29 of the 72 had been hurt at work at least once in the 12 months before the interview.

The researchers sorted training by content: safety training, and task training, which teaches the job itself. Safety training at entry had no protective effect on injuries in the previous year. Workers who had task training were four times less likely to have been hurt, and training given by a coworker was also linked to fewer injuries.

Workers named direct contact with livestock or machinery as the main cause of injury, and most injuries happened while medicating sick cows and milking. The injuries came from the daily tasks, and the training linked to fewer of them was about those tasks.

The survey was small, and its workers volunteered. It shows a link, not that training prevented injuries. The abstract does not say when the training came or whether a named person gave it. On the list you write both.

How soon does a new farm worker run the most risk?

A new farm worker runs the most risk in the first months on the job. In the US Bureau of Labor Statistics survey for 2015, 20.5 percent of the cases with days away from work in that sector were in people who had worked for that employer under three months. Across all private industry the share was 11.4 percent.

These counts show where injuries land, not each worker’s risk. Farms hire many seasonal workers, so newcomers may be a large part of the crew at any time. A per-worker figure comes from Ontario, Canada. Breslin and Smith compared workers’ compensation claims for time lost from work with the estimated number of full-time workers in each group. Workers in their first month on the job were over four times more likely to have a lost-time claim than workers with over one year in the job. The link was stronger in the goods industries, a group that includes agriculture.

To see whether your own farm follows that pattern, write down how long each person who quit or got hurt had worked for you. That figure belongs among the numbers you track about your crew.

Does planning the first day on paper keep new workers from quitting?

On the evidence so far, planning the first day on paper has not been shown to keep new workers from quitting. In a project reported by Cornell University authors, advisors (educators and consultants) gave templates, examples and close support to the managers of 36 dairies. Seventeen of the farms returned complete figures from before and after. Managers reported tripling their use of first-day safety training and of sharing job descriptions. These are the managers’ own reports.

Turnover is the share of workers who leave. On the 11 farms with complete turnover figures, turnover fell from 44 percent to 28 percent, but the study could not rule out chance as the cause. That means that with these figures the drop cannot be told from chance.

So the list gives you a record and the same start for each hire, and no promise that people stay. What else weighs on whether people stay, once the pay is fair, is in a separate article, on why good pay does not keep people.

Who should train each task, and when?

Name the trainer for each first-week task before the new worker arrives, and choose someone who does that task well. It can be a coworker, since the Colorado survey linked coworker training to fewer injuries too. Put the date before the worker does the task alone. Breslin and Smith recommend earlier training and starting workers in low hazard conditions, so on the list a low-hazard task can come first and the riskier ones on later dates.

For tractor work, the US federal rule says an employee who operates a farm tractor must be told the operating practices in the rule’s appendix and any others the work calls for. The rule says to tell them at initial assignment and at least annually after. The rule that binds you is your own country’s, and your accountant or lawyer can tell you which papers and training it requires.

A new hire starts on a Monday at a 600-cow dairy near Tulare, California. This farm is invented, and its list is counted below.

What do you write first, and what can wait until the next hire?

Write first the count of first-week tasks, with one trainer’s name beside each, a week before the start. The hand-over lines can follow, since they need no one to watch. On the first day the new worker dates and signs each line as it happens.

A signature proves one thing: that the item was handed over, shown or told, by the person named on the line, on that date. It does not prove that the worker learned the task. For that, the trainer watches the worker do it, and the trainer’s name on the line shows who watched.

Keep the signed lists in one place, such as a file for each worker. Before the next hire starts, go through the last list. Each unsigned line is something that was not done, or not signed for, so give it a named person and a date. No study has measured this check, and it is a working rule.

A signed safety talk at hiring shows that the worker heard the rules, not that they are protected while the tractor runs. That takes another document, and a separate article, on whether a signed safety briefing is enough, explains how to write it. What each training covers and how often it repeats belongs in a written training plan.

• Count the tasks the new worker will do alone in the first week; that count is the number of training lines
• Write four column headings across the top of a sheet of paper: item, who hands it over, date, signature
• For each of those tasks, write a training line with the trainer’s name and a date before the worker does the task alone
• Add a line for each item you hand over on the first day: gear, keys, fuel and vehicle rules, payday, job description and employment papers. Add one for the coworker the new worker will work beside in the first month
• Have the new worker date and sign each line as it happens, and keep the signed lists in one set place, such as a file for each worker
• Before the next worker starts, go through the last hire’s list and give every unsigned line to a named person with a date

Other written documents for your team are in Rurivia’s library on people and the crew, and the decisions about how the farm is run follow from them.