Rank: Forum user 
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Hi Learned Friends, I would like peoples advice and experiences regarding the below please. We as a business are currently looking at employing some teams of men from other countries in the EU to work for us due to lack of labour (This would be construction associated where these teams would be working on construction sites) As usual with anything we take on board i would like to understand all peoples views and experiences on what sorts of things need to be put in place and be aware of for both Safety, Logistically and Legally so we can fully weigh up the pros and cons. All advice and info on this would be greatly appreciated Alan
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Rank: Super forum user
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Alan
This is not uncommon and perhaps you might see if you can liaise to see how other sites manage.
Fairly obviously the first issue is communication including as regards emergency scenarios. You could also go down the competency card route, though there's not much evidence to suggest that other EU citizens are likely to be less competent than the indigenous population.
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Rank: Forum user
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Hi Spud,
Please see link below which should provide you with some useful pointers and advice on what to do to ensure you are complying with the law:
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Rank: Forum user
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Peter,
Thanks for feedback alas it cant be that common as i didnt get a lot of replies, I remember when i first joined here around 15 years ago I seem to be inundated with replies and help. Woolf, Thanks for link I had already seen that I am generally trying to get a clearer picture from other peoples experieces too. Alan
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Rank: Super forum user
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Hi spud I was the safety manager on a new power station build where 80% of the contracts went to Italian & Portugese companies. At its peak we had 1100 guys on the site and 900 were from overseas. Whilst the "communication" piece is key there is a more subtle area you might want to consider, one of culture and cultural norms when it comes to safety. Most folks coming from overseas will want to work here, but they will bring with them their cultural view of health & safety. Despite the EU's best attempts safety standrads differ across the EU. I was struggling with why my lot would clip on at height, wore sunglasses instead of safety specs, etc. Until I went to audit the main engineering company making the gas turbines in Italy. When I observed machine shop guys working machines in sleevles t-shirts, wearing trainers the penny dropped. Back to the power stration and what wwe focused on was chaning their view of H&S in construction. When they got it, andfthey did quite quickly, they were among the safety guys on site. So, my advice would be make your H&S expectations very clear to them on day 1 and you will the buy in. Sorry for the long note but might be of some use to you. Regards, Jonty
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 1 user thanked jontyjohnston for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Thank you very much for the feedback Jonty, very imformative!! Its always good to hear hands on experience.
Alan
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Rank: Super forum user
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As others have said... You need to understand the cultural differences for the originating country. Globally, the pool of workers who have skill and experience constructing and stringing distribution networks is quite small.. And for whatever reason most of the experience comes from the Philippines. So on a major project, most of the work was done by teams of Philippinos. Once it was recognised they needed thicker thermals (the project was mainly highland Scotland..) And that they had mostly experience of American-style rules compliance based safety (rather than UK sfairp system), it was fairly straightforward to get good performance... Just needed written rules for a lot of stuff UK workers might have taken as standard, and a fairly heavy hand on inspection and code breach. They did a good job and did it well.
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