How ‘Newness’ Increases Safety Risks

Many factors influence the risk of injury and illness in a workplace, such as the industry,  nature of the work and type of equipment and materials used. Every safety coordinator is surely familiar with these factors. But recent research has identified another risk factor that’s less well known: “newness.” There are several kinds of “newness,” such as young workers who are new to the workforce in general and recent immigrants who are new to Canada and your workplace. Last spring, the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) released a briefing about the relationship between “newness” and the risk of occupational injury. We’ll tell you what the briefing says and its implications for your workplace. “Newness” in the Workplace The IWH briefing summarizes research on four aspects of “newness” in the workplace: Young workers. Many studies have found that adolescent and young adult workers are more likely to be injured on the job than older workers. This higher risk of injury may be based on factors directly related to youth, such as immaturity and the natural reluctance of younger people to ask ques­tions of supervisors. But it could also be that young workers tend to be employed in riskier jobs, such as those that require heavy lifting. For example, according to a 2005 IWH study, the higher rate of injury among young male workers is due in part to the fact that they were more likely than older workers to be in high risk occupations and/or in jobs involving a relatively high degree of physical effort. Another factor that may explain the higher injury rates for young workers is their relatively high concentration in small companies, which typically have more limited OHS knowledge/resources than larger companies. The types of injuries also differ by age group. One study looked at how the types of work injuries requiring medical attention varied by age group. For both male and female workers aged 15-19, 47% of such injuries were “cuts/punctures/scrapes/bruises/blisters”; in contrast, these kinds of injuries represented only 24% of those suffered by workers 35 and older. Among older workers of both sexes, “dislocations/sprains and strains” were more common. New hires. Young workers may also be more prone to injury simply because they’re new to the job and its hazards. So are all new hires—regardless of age—at higher risk of being hurt? A recent paper by IWH researchers looked at the effect of job tenure on injury claim rates, while controlling for age, gender, industrial sector (services or goods-oriented) and type of oc­cupation (manual, non-manual or mixed). The key finding: Workers on the job for less than a month had four times as many workers’ comp claims as those who held their current job for more than a year. One explanation for this finding is the lack of safety training for new workers. Despite the fact that OHS laws across Canada require employers to provide health and safety training to their workers—and some, such as BC and YT, specifically require safety orientations for new workers—it appears that most new workers don’t receive such training. In a recent study on the prevalence of OHS training reported by workers in their first 12 months of employment, over 75% indicated that they hadn’t received safety training. Recent immigrants. Workers who are recent immigrants have two strikes against them: they’re new to the country (and may face language barriers as well as a lack of recognition of foreign credentials and work experience) and they’re new to their jobs. So it’s no surprise that studies have found that: > Recent immigrants (those in Canada for less than 10 years) were more likely than Canadian-born workers to be in physically demanding oc­cupations and in small workplaces, i.e., those containing less than 20 employees; > Workers whose native language wasn’t English or French or whose highest educational credential wasn’t from Canada had a higher probability than other workers of being in a physically demanding job. (The language issue also heightens concerns about immigrants’ knowledge of their rights, access to information on safe work practices and ability to refuse unsafe work.); and > Immigrants in their first five years in Canada were more likely to be in temporary jobs. In addition, because recent immigrants are often underemployed in terms of hours worked, they may be willing to take on more dangerous tasks at work. As a result of all of these factors, recent immigrant workers have a higher risk of injury than non-immigrant workers. For example, one study found that male immigrants in their first five years in Canada reported twice the rate of work-related injuries requiring medical attention than Canadian-born male workers. New companies. If inexperience is a factor that increases safety risks for new workers, you could conclude that new companies that are inexperienced in workplace safety issues and compliance would have higher injury rates than established companies. One study bears this conclusion out, finding that new firms opening in the previous or current year had a 25% higher rate of  workers’ comp claims than other firms. Conclusion What are the implications of the IWH briefing for your company? You can use it to demonstrate to senior management the importance of safety training for young workers and new workers of all ages. (For more information on protecting young workers, see Insider, April 2009, p. 10. And for information on safety orientations for new workers, see Insider, Feb. 2008, p. 1.) In addition, the briefing supports the need to take measures to address language barriers in the workplace, especially if you have a large number of workers who are recent immigrants who don’t speak English or French as their native tongue. (For information on dealing with language barriers to safety training, see Insider, May 2008, p. 1.) And if your company is relatively new, paying short-shrift to workplace safety in the interest of getting the business up and running will come back to haunt the company in the long run. Insider Source “‘Newness’ and the risk of occupational injury,” The Institute for Work & Health, May 2009