The Problem: Language Barriers = Safety Risks

A recent article in Construction Dive highlights a pressing issue across construction jobsites: many workers, especially Spanish speakers, are not receiving safety training in a language they fully understand.

 (Construction’s language disconnect creates safety risk, Zachary Phillips)

Key points:

• Workers may sit through safety trainings or orientations delivered in English without grasping critical instruction or nuance.
• One result: increased risk of accidents, near misses, or worse — injuries and fatalities. The data show a worryingly rising fatality rate among Hispanic/Latino workers.
• Workers held back: beyond safety risks, there’s the problem of opportunity. Those who are less comfortable with English get disadvantaged — in career development, certifications, or simply being able to advocate when something’s unsafe.
• The usual excuse? “There’s no time,” or “it costs too much,” or “we don’t have someone bilingual.” But that’s short-sighted. The cost of misunderstanding on safety is too high — for individuals, companies, and projects alike.

So: how can contractors ensure that all workers, regardless of language, truly understand safety requirements before stepping on site?

The Solution: Eyrus Onboarding + Worker Registration

Eyrus offers tools that help bridge these gaps. Specifically, the Worker Registration and Onboarding Materials features are designed to deliver training, documentation, and safety content in more accessible, verifiable ways.

Here’s how Eyrus helps solve the problem:

1. Worker Registration

• Projects using Eyrus require all workers to be registered. This allows for capturing necessary credentials, safety certifications, and ensuring each worker has completed initial onboarding steps before they access the worksite.
• Because registration happens digitally, it's easier to track who has and hasn’t completed required materials.

2. Onboarding Materials (Videos, Presentations, etc.)

Eyrus gives projects the ability to attach onboarding materials—videos, presentations, documents—to the registration process. Key capabilities include:

• Multiple formats: You can upload video files directly, link to YouTube or Vimeo, or embed presentations (PowerPoint or via web-based PPT tools).
• Required viewing: If you upload a video, you can mark it so that workers cannot complete registration until they have watched the entire video. Controls like scrubbing (fast-forwarding) can be locked, which helps prevent skipping over crucial parts.
• Multi-language captions & translations: This is the big lever. You can provide captions or translations so that workers can consume the content in their native or preferred language. That directly addresses the core issue of comprehension.
• Visibility during registration: When onboarding materials are attached, registrants (workers) see them in the “Onboarding” tab during their registration process. Viewing each item is part of the workflow before submission.

Why This Matters

Putting training and safety materials before access to the site—and ensuring comprehension—makes safety proactive, not reactive. Some advantages:

Call to Action: Implementing Inclusive, Safe Onboarding Today

If you’re managing a construction project (GC, subcontractor, owner, safety manager), here’s a checklist to put the Eyrus features to work:

1. Audit your workforce’s language needs — what are the primary languages, dialects, levels of English proficiency?
2. Create or translate safety-orientation videos and presentations (in Spanish or other needed languages), or add captions/translations to existing media.
3. Set onboarding materials as “required viewing” so that workers can’t bypass them.
4. Embed them into your Eyrus registration workflow via the “Onboarding Materials” tab in Registration Preferences.
5. Track completion — monitor who’s registered, who’s completed everything, who still needs reminders.

Conclusion

The construction industry can’t afford communication breakdowns, especially around safety. As Construction Dive makes clear, when workers don’t understand, everyone loses: people, productivity, reputation.

Eyrus delivers tools that not only recognize the language gap but give project teams the means to close it—through required, multilingual onboarding materials integrated directly into worker registration.

Learn more about Eyrus Worker Registration & Onboarding: https://www.eyrus.com/solutions/worker-registration

Learn more about Construction Worker Registration & Onboarding in general: https://www.eyrus.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-construction-onboarding-software