Induction

Nobody should reach a work area without an induction, and on most sites the induction is a video, a signature and a card.

For teams turning induction into a repeatable record, the official page provides a useful operational reference for time, attendance and reporting workflows. It should be assessed alongside Chartered Institute of Building so the software choice remains grounded in site practice and applicable guidance.

What it has to achieve

That the person knows the site's specific hazards, which are not the generic ones they learned for their card.

That they know the traffic routes, the exclusion zones and where the plant operates.

That they know the alarm, the assembly point and how to raise an emergency.

That they know the permit system and what work requires one.

And that the site has verified their identity, their right to work and their competence — which is administrative and is the part that actually gets done.

Why generic induction fails

A twenty-minute video about construction safety in general teaches somebody with a card nothing they do not already know.

The value is entirely in the site-specific content: this excavation, that crane, this one-way system, that neighbour who complains about noise before seven.

Which requires the induction to be written for the site and updated as the site changes, and that is the part that lapses.

A site in month fourteen running the induction written in month one is inducting people into a project that no longer exists.

Why it expires

Sites change. The traffic route moves, the crane arrives, the excavation opens, the scaffold goes up.

A person inducted in the groundworks phase and still on site during the fit-out has been briefed on a different project.

Which is the argument for a re-induction at phase changes rather than an annual one.

And for a short refresher after any absence of a few weeks, because a person returning after a month finds a different site.

The identity and right-to-work check

General orientation, not legal advice.

Obligations differ by jurisdiction, and in several the penalty for employing somebody without the right to work falls on the contractor regardless of which company in the chain engaged them.

Which makes this a gate function rather than a subcontractor's problem.

Check documents, record what was checked and when, and retain according to the local rule — which is usually a defined period rather than indefinitely.

And apply it consistently to everybody, because a check applied selectively is a discrimination problem on top of the original one.

What to record

That the induction happened, when, and which version of the content.

The identity and right-to-work verification, with the date.

Competence status and expiry.

Emergency contact, and any medical information the person volunteers that a first aider would need.

Not: a copy of everything they produced, which is more personal data than the site needs and which somebody will eventually have to justify holding.

The formality version

Signature on a sheet, video playing to an empty room, card issued.

Which satisfies the record and achieves nothing, and is recognisable by one test: ask somebody inducted last week where the assembly point is.

If they do not know, the induction was administration.

Making it work at scale

Large sites induct dozens of people a week and the queue is the constraint.

Pre-induction online for the generic content, with the site-specific part delivered on arrival is the arrangement that works: it shortens the on-site session to the part that matters.

And it produces a record before the person arrives, which lets the gate know they are expected.

The measure

Inductions delivered against people on the register, which should match exactly and frequently does not.

Re-inductions at phase changes, counted.

And the assembly point question, asked of a sample, which takes five minutes and is the only test of whether any of it landed.

Who delivers it

Somebody who knows the site today, rather than a central training function working from a document.

Which in practice means a site manager or a supervisor, and therefore costs their time — the reason inductions drift toward video.

A hybrid: the video for the generic half, a supervisor for ten minutes on the site half.

Ten minutes of somebody who was on the site this morning is worth more than an hour of anything else, and it is the part to protect when the schedule is tight.

Inducting people who will be there for an hour

A delivery driver, an inspector, a client visitor.

A full induction is disproportionate and no induction is wrong.

A visitor briefing — hazards, route, assembly point, escort requirement — takes two minutes and produces a record.

And an escort requirement solves most of it: somebody accompanied does not need to know the site, because the person with them does.