Workers aged between 15 and 24 years make up about 18 per cent of the Queensland workforce.
4000 young workers suffer a serious injury at work each year – that’s an injury that
keeps them off work for at least 5 days, and possibly one that will affect their ability
to work for the rest of their life. A serious injury affects not just the worker, but their
colleagues and supervisor, their family and their friends.
As a supervisor or manager of a young worker, you have the greatest influence on their attitude
to work safety. This means ensuring an appropriate level of supervision relevant to the tasks
that they are performing.
With a young worker, they normally just come out of school, so they want to work, they
want to earn a bit of money, so they like to come in and shine, impress straightaway.
And to impress, you normally think you need to get in there and do flat-out work, and
that sometimes could create a bit of drama.
You try and open up dialogue with them around what have they actually experienced in their
life? If they’ve just been in school and they’ve just joined us, well, we know we’ve
got to look after them that little bit more.
We have a lot of dangers in our industry. They might not look dangerous until you start
doing stuff like jumping down steps or whatnot. You just got to be aware they’ll come up
to a hole instead of just taking the way down, they’d think, “We’ll jump down and get
it done quick and easy,” and that’s where they find themselves in a bit of strife.
Young workers have a unique risk profile. They may not notice when a situation becomes
dangerous, or they may misjudge the level of risk.
They may be less likely to ask questions or raise safety concerns, and they model their
behaviour off others – whether that behaviour is right or wrong.
Effective induction, proper training, regular supervision and support and mentoring
is vital for a young worker to adopt the right attitude to safety and develop safe work practices.
Let’s follow two young workers as they go about their work day, to see how the interactions
with their supervisors and their experiences can differ.
This is Adam, he is 19 and lives with his mum and dad. He’s been working as a civil
construction trainee for the last 3 months. His boss, Ray, values young workers. Ray knows
that his business’s safety system needs to accommodate Adam’s unique risk profile
to ensure he is safe at work and is productive for the business. Ray follows the ‘tell
me, show me, watch me’ approach.
This is Ryan, he is 21 and he is a first year apprentice tiler. He has just moved in with
his girlfriend Emily. Ryan hopes one day to be his own boss with his own business. Ryan’s
boss, Dan, thinks young workers are often a hassle, slow and spend more time checking
their phones than focusing on their work.
Hey Adam, can you come over here for a minute please mate.
I’m just going to get you to do a bit of work on the excavator today. Ok I know you’ve
done your unit of competency but using one on site is a different story.
So what I'm going to get you to do is move that pile of dirt, on that flat - over to here.
Yeah Ok cool.
Do you feel comfortable with that? Alright cool, yeah.
Alright, wonderful, we’ll just start off with a pre-check.
So we’ll then jump inside the cab and check all the controls because they can vary from
machine to machine. Ok. Yep ok
And then together we will go through the Safe Work Method Statement, ok?
So you’ve probably seen a SWMS before on
other high-risk activities so we’ll still go through just so that you understand the
measures we have in place to ensure the safe operation of the excavator.
Yeah. So we’ll be doing a few easy navigation
tasks, and I’ll be in constant contact and watching you at all times. Ok just remember
the exclusion zone is marked out and if anything or anyone comes inside that zone you need
to immediately stop. Alright cool. Yep.
Any questions? No, I’m ready to go.
Alright. Woah, nice enthusiasm. Um what do you need to do?
Just be moving the excavator around, lift up the bucket, you’ll be in eye contact
just in case anything goes wrong and if anyone enters the exclusion zone I’ll stop.
Excellent, great stuff. Ok reckon you can handle it?
Yeah, definitely. Alright on you go.
Ryan, awesome you can grace us with your presence from college. Now look mate we’ve got a
lot on our plate today. Do you know how to use a tile cutter?
Yes. Alright good, what about a grinder?
uhhhhhh yeah, yeah, we’ve done that. Alright, good. I need you to head out to the
ute and I want you to get the tile cutter and the grinder and I want you to change the
blade on the grinder. Then I want you to make a dozen cuts with 60 mil trim and then I want
you to cut two with 90 mil waste with a 4 inch grinder.
You good to do that mate? Yeah
Alright good, let’s get stuck in.
And Ryan, no mucking around today mate. We’ve got a lot on our plate alright. Yep
Great job, good stuff. Were you comfortable with that?
Yeah, I just stick to the plan and it’s all sweet.
That’s it, that’s what they are there for. Just do everything according to the book…
ok that means following the work plan and the SWMS. That way we don’t even have any
near-misses incidents on this site. Ok, Any questions?
No I’m all good. What I’m going to do now is get you to do
something a little more interesting than that. I’m just going to get you to move the materials
from here over to the stock pile. Alright.
Ok, But first of all I’m going to do a demo and I want you to watch that closely. I’ll
ask you to step outside the exclusion zone and just watch me carefully, ok.
All right.
Yeah righto mate that sounds good. But, yeah look we got a lot on the go at the moment.
So hang on a second mate. Ryan! Ryan! Mate where’s the guard for the
grinder? What’s going on with the glasses and the ear plugs? I thought you knew what
you were doing mate. Yeah, yeah I do, it cos the others don’t
have it on, so I thought I didn’t need it – I’m sorry but like…
Head to the back of the trailer and I want you to get the guard for the grinder and don’t
worry about what these other guys are up to. Ok just focus on what you have to do.
I haven’t got time to babysit you today mate I really need you to get stuck in and
get this job done. Ok, then come see me. Alright. Yeah.
Alright sorry about that mate, yeah got a few dramas with the apprentice.
Yeah, no we’ll sort it out, all good.
Adam, how did your week at training college go this week?
Oh yeah it was OK. The teachers are alright, but actually it’s really good using the
simulator first. I’d rather be doing real stuff on site you know.
Oh well I’m really glad that you’re enjoying it. Honestly you’re paying attention cause
you’re picking things up really quickly! Oh thank you.
Hey, speaking of college, I probably should take a look at your training record before
you take off hey. Oh yeah that’d actually be pretty good
All right I’ll come with you now. Sweet
No worries. So I hear you play in a band?
Ryan, there you are mate. Shipping off early today.
Alright, do you just want me to finish this up then?
Mate a couple of the guys are going to finish off the ensuite so they’ll shut up shop,
but I want you to finish those cuts off put them in the corner ready for the morning.
(Phone rings) Dan speaking…
Ohh ok … um ok so just with this tile placement do you want me to put it like….
An effective form of inducting a young worker into a particular task can be using the ‘tell
me show me watch me’ approach. So that involves providing a verbal and written instruction
into performing the task. Demonstrating how to perform it safely and then providing feedback
while watching the young worker actually demonstrating the task
With our young workers in terms of how we manage inductions and characteristics of supervision,
we think about how they learn, their learning styles. These days it’s more around about
visual rather than just general written communication
We’re trying to use more visual aids which is – oh, that’s in your face rather than
some guy reading from the piece of paper. So induction is really important into a particular
task or using a particular piece of equipment, making sure that the worker is competent in–
“performing that work”, that they understand the work that is going on around them, that
they're supervised.
In terms of supervision, we talk about supervisors being more understanding of how young workers
learn. How important it is that they actually have more interactions with the supervisor
on a day-to-day basis rather than being left alone.
We have to have good conversations with them. “We’ve told you not to use your phone.”
“Are you sure you’re alright? “You seem a bit distracted.” It’s just that another
level of engagement with our workforce. We know that providing mentoring and social
support is really important to allow young workers to engage with their work environment socially.
We have a mentoring program that we use on a regular basis which identifies the supervisor
taking more action or someone who’s been in the industry a long period of time and
takes them under their wing and helps them through their career, probably for the first
three to six months.
You can usually tell when you first meet someone, you know, perceptual and you can usually judge
out whether someone’s a strong character or a little bit more reserved. And you sit
down and have your one-to-one with them and “what’s your experience?” and
then you start to look at, “hold on, he’d probably be better going with that guy; he’s
a little bit withdrawn and we need to give him that a little bit more support.” Whereas,
you get some youngsters who are very brash, know-it-all, done-it-all-before and they need
a bit of temper and so we put them with one of our stronger guys who’s probably a little
bit more outspoken.
Their values are different than older people that have been in the industry a long period
of time. So we try and leverage off those values and use them to guide them through
their decision making throughout their career
We also try not to ostracise them and highlight them by wearing different coloured hats. So
they are part of the workforce. The supervisors really do need to have a one-to-one relationship
with them.
Proactive initiatives around financial skills, mental health and wellbeing, physical health
and wellbeing, even literacy – those kind of issues can impact on a young worker's health
and safety…While there may not be directly a safety initiative, it has positive safety
outcomes by engaging young workers within their work environment.
Some of the examples that we've seen where industries engage with their young workers
around safety has had really positive outcomes. So it helps them to understand some of the
documentation and systems that they've got in place and why they are important. It's
helped them to understand why they do the role that they do that way and the dangers
that might be associated with those roles.
Through effective induction and training, appropriate supervision and good feedback,
and supportive mentoring, young workers will become more aware of how to do the job safely.
Engaging with young workers through consultation will also enable them to share their ideas
around work health and safety and help to improve the way that safety is managed in
your workplace.
Unless we get in and support it as an industry, the importance of the young workers and their
interactions and the value they bring, recognising yes, they are little bit in that risk group
of high incidents, however, we can actually manage risk, no different from any other risk
that we see on our sites.
The best advice I would give to anybody is keep open communication and keep talking and
make them feel part of what we do.
There is a lot to be gained from the young workers and the information and knowledge
that they can impart to us to learn as an organisation and as industry as a whole.