ABSTRACT
Research is presented which suggests that new recruits are associated with a range of idiosyncratic safety issues, including underestimating actual job safety risks, holding unrealistic safety expectations for co-workers, and engaging in over-enthusiastic, and potentially risky, helping behaviors. Furthermore, research suggests that co-workers tend to trust new recruits to behave safely, which has potential safety risks. Collectively, these findings may explain why new recruits have proportionally more accidents when compared to more senior employees. These research findings are integrated into a model of new recruit safety risk which also describes the steps an organization can take during new recruit hiring, on-boarding, and the initial employment period to minimize the accident potential of new recruits. It is argued that the model can be applied to any industry, and has the potential to reduce workplace accidents associated with new recruits.
