H E A LT H A N D S A F E T Y
How to Talk to Young Workers
About Health and Safety
Managing a multigenerational workforce
By Glyn Jones, CSRP
How can we talk to young people about health and
safety and be sure they are listening and hearing
us? That is a question that challenges us all. The
health and safety message is just not getting out to our
young people at work. The statistics* prove it and suggest
that young men are almost twice as likely to be injured at
work as the average worker and more than three times as
likely to be injured than their female counterparts. These
injuries are happening in almost every sector of our
economy: construction, service, manufacturing, transportation
and retail. Most of these injuries are happening
within the first six months of work.
The current message being sent out is loud and clear:
Safety is number one! The message is being sent out
through our health and safety programs, new hire training
and other initiatives but the message is not being
heard. What is going on here? Why isn’t our message
getting through? They are not hearing us because our
messaging is wrong. It is a problem of differing values,
ambitions, views, mind-sets, demographics and multigenerational
differences in the way we communicate.
We are living in a time in which there are four
distinct generations at work: the Veterans, the Baby
Boomers (Boomers), the Gen X-ers and the Nexters (also
* (Data source: WorkSafeBC statistical services)
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