Keeping Young People Safe in the Workplace

Most employers are fully aware of their duties under Health and Safety legislation to safeguard their employees from the hazards they may encounter in the workplace.

What many are less aware of is that inexperienced workers (typically in the age range from 15 to 24 years old) are likely to be more at risk than their older, more experienced colleagues.

It is helpful to know how people are defined by age in Health and Safety law:

"A Young Person" is anyone under the age of 18 years of age

"A Child" is anyone who has not yet reached the official age at which they may leave school, (this is often referred to as the minimum school leaving age, MSLA)

Larger organisations that employ significant numbers of graduates or school leavers on a routine basis should be aware of the need to consider young people as a special case in regard to health and safety. However, smaller organisations that may recruit very few young people or perhaps only employ them on a sporadic basis may overlook the need to give them special attention.

Causal Factors

There are all kinds of reasons why young people face greater work-related risks including, for example:

General lack of skills and experience of the work, the tasks and the workplace
Lack of maturity often leading to a failure to recognise risks that may be second nature to their older, more experienced workmates
Lack of specific health and safety training, coupled with a natural tendency to ignore or not to treat seriously any training that is given.

Statistically, young people are at greatest risk during their first month of employment. This fact points to additional risk factors that employers need to take into account, for example:

A significantly different environment to that which they have been accustomed to whilst in education
Longer working hours, possibly coupled with more physically demanding work. These are just two of the factors that may lead to fatigue, particularly toward the end of the day.
In some cases, they may need to adjust to irregular working patterns and arrangements such as shift systems or overtime working.

Whatever the factors involved, young people are certainly more at risk in the workplace. In 2007/2008 there were 23 fatalities amongst young workers in the UK. Around half of these occurred in just two sectors – agriculture and construction – but there were also accidents and deaths in other industries.

Every fatality or major injury is a tragedy that impacts family, friends and work colleagues as well as those who may be held responsible. Even when there is no blame attached to anyone, the incident can be devastating for all concerned. Somehow, when the victim is a young person, the tragedy seems to take on an added poignancy.

Addressing the Issues

As always with health and safety, the solution must start at the top. Owners, Directors, Senior Managers down must recognise that young people in the workplace face added risks and be prepared to address them.

It always helps if a strong safety culture already pervades the workplace where young people are employed. Apart from being influenced directly by the culture, it also means that other employees are more likely to intervene to correct any unsafe practices of younger workers and are naturally concerned about their safety.

However, there also needs to be a formal approach, beginning with a carefully drafted policy that is signed off at the highest level of the organisation.

The policy must then be backed by a programme of risk assessments particularly aimed at the needs of younger workers. These must be followed up with measures to eliminate or minimise risks including, for example, training, supervision and mentoring.

Training on its own can be notoriously ineffective with young people, who often see safety as someone else's responsibility. It helps if the training is reinforced, perhaps by the addition of a formal qualification that they can add to their CV. Certainly, they should be getting the same messages from whoever is responsible for their supervision and it helps if the theme of health and safety is carried across into other work related training.

The Health and Safety Executive's attitude toward young workers is clearly expressed in terms of:

"If a significant risk remains in spite of your best efforts to do what is reasonably practicable to control it, you must not employ the young person to do the work."

From this statement, we can extrapolate that we should always take extra care in the choice of work for which we employ young people and only do so when we can be assured of their safety.

Resources

The attached document is extracted from a young person's risk assessment used by EDP Consultants. It must be stressed that this assumes all other required Risk Assessments have been carried out and actioned. The additional questions are in recognition that risks in the workplace are so much greater for young workers.

Contact EDP HS&E Consultants for all your health, safety and environment needs. We can check your current arrangements and advise you about any changes or improvements you need to make.

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