Site Induction Checklist: Contractor Guide

New site, a new labourer starting Monday, and someone has told you to "do a site induction". That's usually where the help ends. No template, no topic list, no hint of how long it should take or what you're on the hook for if you get it wrong.

That's the gap this guide fills. It covers what CDM 2015 actually requires and who holds the duty, then gives you a working checklist built from HSE and CITB guidance that you can adapt to your own site. It's written for small contractors and sole traders, including the jobs where you're the only contractor and the duty lands on you.

What the Law Actually Requires

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 sits underneath everything. Section 2 requires every employer to provide the information, instruction, training and supervision needed to keep their employees safe, and a site induction is one of the most direct ways a construction employer delivers that. The employee has a duty too, under section 7: take reasonable care of yourself and others, and co-operate with your employer. That's why each worker's own responsibilities belong in the induction itself.

Who Must Give the Induction

On a project with a principal contractor, the duty sits with them. Regulation 13(4)(a) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 requires the principal contractor to ensure a suitable site induction is provided. In practice that usually means one induction at the site office or the gate, and every contractor's workers get the same brief before they start.

Your own duty as a contractor doesn't disappear, though. Regulation 15(8) requires a contractor to provide each worker under their control with appropriate supervision, instructions and information, and regulation 15(9)(a) says that information must include a suitable site induction where one has not already been provided by the principal contractor. So if the principal contractor's induction doesn't cover the specific risks your workers face, or doesn't happen at all, the duty comes back to you.

The case most small firms miss is the single-contractor project. Under regulation 15(5), the sole contractor on a project draws up the construction phase plan, and with no principal contractor to hand the job to, they must themselves ensure the induction is provided. On a domestic extension where you're the only firm on site, you are the duty holder, and every worker you bring onto that job, including agency labour and subbies, gets inducted by you.

What CDM 2015 Does Not Tell You

Here's the part that catches people out. CDM 2015 says the induction must be "suitable" and stops there. There's no statutory list of topics, no fixed duration, and no legally required permit or certificate for site access. Suitability is judged against the site in front of you: a ten-minute run-through can be entirely right for a small extension and hopelessly thin for a demolition strip-out next to an occupied building.

The topic lists that get passed around come from guidance rather than the regulations. HSE's L153 guidance on CDM 2015 sets out what supervision, instructions and information should look like, and CITB's CDM 2015 industry guidance lists the induction topics most sites cover. The checklist below is built from those sources. For the wider picture on roles and paperwork, see CDM 2015: what small contractors need to know.

The Site Induction Checklist

Treat this as your base list rather than a script to read out. Every item maps back to HSE or CITB guidance, and you should cut, expand and reorder based on what your site actually looks like. Work through it before the worker starts, in plain English, and leave room for questions.

Tailor It to the Site

How much detail is enough depends on the size, scope and level of risk of the project. That's not a dodge, it's the actual test the guidance gives you. The induction for a ground-floor rear extension needs to cover the client still living in the house, the shared access route, and where the skip sits. It probably doesn't need a formal traffic management plan.

A demolition strip-out is a different animal. Live services that haven't been isolated yet, fragile roof surfaces, the asbestos survey, heavy plant moving in and out, and other trades working in the same footprint all need naming specifically. Same checklist, very different depth on the site-specific risks line.

One more link worth making: the site-specific risks you brief come from your risk assessment. If the induction is where workers first hear about the overhead cables, someone has to have assessed those risks first, and recorded the findings where the firm has five or more employees. That's the connection between the induction and your risk assessment and method statements, and it's why the checklist includes telling workers where those documents are kept.

New Worker Site Inductions

A new worker gets their induction before they start work, not after they've carried a few loads and found their own way around. The induction is the entry point to the site. They hear the rules, the risks and the emergency arrangements before they pick up a tool.

The law backs that up from the other direction too. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to provide adequate health and safety training when someone is recruited, and when they're exposed to new or increased risks, including a new system of work. A new site is exactly that. The induction is the site-specific layer on top of whatever training and tickets the worker already holds.

That leads to the point most worth pinning down: an induction does not make a worker competent. Regulation 15(7) of CDM 2015 stops a contractor appointing or using a worker unless that person has, or is in the process of obtaining, the skills, knowledge, training and experience for the tasks allocated. That gate sits before the induction, not after it. A fifteen-minute brief doesn't turn a groundworker into a scaffolder, and it doesn't replace the training duty under the Management Regulations either.

The worker's side of the deal matters too. Under section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, every employee has to take reasonable care for their own health and safety and for others affected by what they do, and co-operate with their employer so the duties can actually be met. Say that out loud in the induction. Workers who know they're part of the system, not just the audience for it, report problems instead of walking past them.

Records and Inspection-Readiness

CDM 2015 doesn't create a duty to keep a signed induction record. That surprises people who've been handed a signature sheet on every big site they've worked on. The signature sheet is good practice, and it's your evidence, but it isn't a statutory requirement in itself.

Keep one anyway. If there's an incident, or an HSE inspector turns up, one of the first questions will be what the worker was told and when. A signed and dated record with the topics covered answers that in seconds. Without one you're relying on memory. For what else an inspector is likely to ask about, see what an HSE inspector looks for.

A simple sheet works: worker's name, date, the site, the topics covered, a signature, and the name of whoever gave the induction. Store it with the construction phase plan so it's findable, not filed in a van door.

Inductions Are Not One-Off

The entry induction covers the site as it stands on the day the worker arrives. Sites don't stand still. The scaffold goes up, the strip-out opens a new void, a different contractor moves in downstairs, the fire exit changes because the fit-out has started. The guidance is clear that further information must be given on an ongoing basis whenever the situation changes.

That's where the three layers separate. The site induction happens once, at the start. Toolbox talks cover specific topics or changes as the job moves on, and they work best short and regular rather than long and rare. Task briefings cover the method for the job in hand that day, and they usually come straight out of the method statement. For ideas your crew won't switch off for, see these toolbox talk topics.

If that sounds like the induction is just the first of many briefings, that's because it is. The induction gets the worker through the gate safely. The talks and briefings keep them safe for the rest of the job.