Safety for young employees at work - Budapest Conference

Jill Joyce, Senior Policy and Technical Adviser from IOSH moderated a session at the 3rd Injury Prevention Conference in Budapest in June 2011.

The safety of young employees at work is an important issue as over half a million young workers were injured in the EU in 2007. Latest statistics available from Eurostat indicate that although the occurrence of accidents decreased between 1999 and 2007 for workers aged 25 to 64, the occurrence of accidents increased in young workers aged 15 to 24.

Accidents at work occur more often in men, younger workers, and in those with a low educational level and occur more frequently in the construction, manufacturing and agriculture sectors. Young workers are more vulnerable in the work place because of their inexperience and physical and psychological immaturity. They are susceptible to peer pressure and often have an unrealistic perception of risk. They are keen to please and therefore are less likely to question work procedures.

This means that safety training and supervision are vital for young workers. Attitudes and commitment to safety are shaped during the first few months in employment, making this an important time to reinforce positive safety attitudes and combat any poor health habits which might lead to problems in later life.

In this session, Sarah Copsey (European Agency for Health and Safety at Work) outlined success factors in preventing risks to young workers, looking at evidence from four initiatives in European workplaces. These involved:

•older apprentices sharing experiences of accidents and incidents with younger apprentices to inform risk assessment
•students proposing practical solutions to real life problems at an agricultural college,
•a partnership between a temporary work agency, a company and a large insurance company resulting in a joint safety charter and young workers developing an interactive training tool.
•a ‘whole school' approach to safety.
Dr. Linda Miller (Institute for Employment Studies )discussed how training, organisational factors and individual differences can influence risks to young workers. She reported research assessing the longer term impact of the ‘safe learner' blueprint for apprentices. Other aspects apart from the quality of health and safety training were found to influence health and safety at work, including the workplace safety culture, the quality of supervision and individual differences such as conscientiousness of the learner. Learners are more likely to apply information they see as relevant, so the more occupation/sector specific information is, the better. There is evidence that supervisors have a direct impact on worker safety, which has implications for supervisor training.

Susanne Ulk (Consultant to Danish Teacher Trade Unions) described how safety and health awareness has been raised in Denmark. Teaching health and safety is a high priority and is mandatory for all school grades. Students are encouraged to make a positive contribution to their own health and safety. She described a web portal targeted at young workers but also containing information for parents, employers and schools. The young person section contains five thematic dilemma games to help them understand risk. This illustrated the need for inspiring, excellent and affordable teaching materials.

Participants at the workshop then discussed the points from the presentations, comparing what happens in their own countries and whether there was potential to use the good practice examples outlined. Possible policies were then discussed to increase the political profile of the injury issue and stakeholders identified that needed to contribute to this process.

A full report and details of presentations will be available at 3rd European Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion.