Training young workers isn’t the same as training older workers. You may need to take a different approach to grab and maintain the attention of workers under age 25 and get your safety message through to them.

Creativity is one way to get through to young workers. Just look at what Manitoba has been doing in this area.

For several years now, SAFE Work Manitoba has developed some interesting and unusual campaigns aim at young workers. Last year’s safety campaign was called “Tales from the Creep.” This year, the province has turned to the undead.

The 2012 SAFE Work youth campaign Spot the Zombie Manitoba is designed to encourage young workers to identify workplace hazards, ask questions, and recognize and practice the SAFE Work risk management model.

At spotthezombiemanitoba.com, a video features a young worker at a gas station surrounded by zombies, each representing a different workplace hazard.

Manitoba isn’t the only jurisdiction using “scare” tactics for safety training of young workers.

The British Safety Council recently launched Speak Up, Stay Safe, a campaign to teach teens about workplace safety. The campaign includes a free online game, The Missing: A Dangerous Truth. The goal is for young workers to complete puzzles and find hidden dangers as they work to discover why some people in Shadow Hills go to work…but never come back.

So if you have young workers in your workplace, take a look at your training program to see if there are creative ways to improve it. (Here’s a look at how one organization improved its young worker training program.)

And with Halloween on the horizon, consider adding your own creepy touches to safety training to engage your young workers.

OHS Resources

The OHS Insider’s New & Young Worker Compliance Centre has resources that can help you better protect your young workers, including:

• Information on the legal protections for young workers and how to comply with them
• Recorded webinars on young worker safety training and how to effectively provide safety training to “generation Y” workers
• A young worker orientation checklist you can use to create a young worker safety training program
• An infographic on new and young workers you can display in your workplace.

You can also go to Safety Smart for:

• A safety talk handout on 10 questions young and new workers need answered
• A follow-up quiz.

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