Safety vs. Speed: How to Reduce Time-to-Hire Without Compromising Workplace Safety

Hiring fast isn’t just about staying competitive, it’s about keeping your team supported, operations moving, and costs down. But the trade-off? Too often, speed comes at the cost of safety.

It’s a dilemma familiar to hiring managers across industries. Do you hold out for a candidate who ticks every box at the risk of stretching your existing team thin? Or move quickly and risk onboarding someone who doesn’t meet safety standards?

This doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. It’s possible to speed up your hiring timeline while preserving (and even improving) workplace safety. The key is shifting from reactive recruitment to strategic, data-informed decisions.

TIME TO HIRE: THE PRESSURE IS REAL

Time-to-hire refers to the days between posting a job and having your candidate accept the offer. When this timeline stretches, the consequences add up:

More overtime and burnout for your team
Delays in productivity
Increased cost-per-hire

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average time-to-fill a role is 42 days. In high-volume or high-risk industries, this is often unacceptable. But hiring faster shouldn’t mean cutting out the steps that keep your workforce safe.

The Real Cost of Rushed Hiring

Speeding up the hiring process by skipping crucial checks, like behavioural assessments or structured interviews, can backfire badly:

Unsafe work practices
Higher incident and injury rates
Regulatory breaches
Team disruption and morale issues

In Australia alone, Safe Work Australia reports over 130,000 serious claims per year, many stemming from avoidable incidents. Some of these are preventable with stronger hiring frameworks.

SO WHAT DOES A FAST AND SAFE HIRING PROCESS LOOK LIKE?

Here’s how to optimise your recruitment strategy for both speed and safety:

1. Front-Load the Right Assessments

Start your hiring process with tools that screen for critical safety behaviours and job readiness.

Pre-employment testing can include:

Behavioural safety profiling
Role-specific knowledge or scenario testing
Cognitive and problem-solving assessments

Digital platforms like Testgrid let you auto-score candidates and instantly identify those who meet your safety and competency thresholds.

2. Structure Your Interviews

Forget gut feel. Structured interviews remove guesswork and reduce bias by asking each candidate the same set of relevant, validated questions.

What this achieves:

Fairer comparison
Stronger predictive validity
Less chance of missing red flags

When done well, these interviews are efficient and reveal more about how a person thinks and works under pressure, something a resume alone can’t show.

3. Refine the Job Description

Vague ads attract vague applicants. Be clear about:

Safety-critical responsibilities
Required certifications or licenses
Behaviours aligned with your culture and WHS requirements

The clearer your ad, the better your initial applicant pool, and the faster you can move forward.

4. Let Automation Do the Heavy Lifting

Admin tasks slow everything down. Where you can, automate:

CV screening
Interview scheduling
Reference checking

This reduces time-to-hire and gives your team room to focus on vetting candidates where safety is at stake.

5. Build Your Bench Early

Don’t start from scratch every time. Create a living database of high-quality, pre-assessed talent:

Internal staff ready for promotion
Previous strong candidates
Referral network applicants

When an urgent hire arises, you’ll already have a shortlist ready.

6. Bring WHS Into the Hiring Conversation

Involve your safety or WHS team early. They can help shape:

Role requirements and risk profiles
Suitable assessment tools
Safety-aligned KPIs for hiring

It’s not just HR’s job to hire safely, it’s everyone’s.

7. Watch the Data

Review your time-to-hire numbers regularly. Where are delays creeping in? Are they due to:

Manager approvals?
Assessment results?
Candidate response times?

Use these insights to fine-tune your process without compromising on the essentials.

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT: WHAT CONSTRUCTION CAN TEACH US

An Australian construction company recently overhauled their hiring strategy. By bringing in behavioural safety assessments and automating initial screening, they reduced incident rates by 35% in 12 months. Time-to-hire dropped from 28 to 14 days.

This wasn’t about moving faster for the sake of it, it was about focusing on what mattered and letting tech handle the rest.

GET IN TOUCH

Fast hiring doesn’t mean rushed hiring. By embedding safety into every stage of the recruitment funnel—from job ad to job offer—you can move quicker without raising risk.

It’s about working smarter: using data, tools, and people strategically. And when safety becomes a shared responsibility across recruitment, HR, and operations, the results speak for themselves.

If you want to talk to one of our experts about our tailored solutions, get in touch with our team here, or call 03 9040 1700 to learn more.