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Managers urged to put safety first
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSLONDON, England (CNN) -- Younger workers are at a far greater risk than older staff of suffering accidents in the workplace, providing a challenge for managers to ensure proper safety supervision, the European Union said. The EU's Agency for Safety and Health at Work (OSHA) said workers aged between 18 and 25 were had 50 percent more accidents than staff over 25. It pointed to a recent Canadian study that suggested younger workers are five times more likely to be injured during their first four weeks of employment. For many young staff, OSHA fears, their first day on the job can too easily be their worst day. The agency is planning a year-long offensive, starting in January, aimed at highlighting the dangers younger workers face -- as well as the responsibilities of managers to protect them. The campaign's manager, Sarah Copsey, told CNN young people were at particular risk because they were largely inexperienced and sometimes lacked awareness of the dangers of a particular workplace -- dangers other staff can assume everyone knows. That meant they required special supervision from managers committed to providing the best work practices. It also meant, she added, that employers have a duty to protect new workers from themselves. "It's too late for people to realize how dangerous a machine is after they've put their hand in it," she said. "People have to take responsibility for looking after themselves, but only after they've been given enough information to do so. "Even some examples that you would think are just cases of individual stupidity often can have something behind them that points to poor training." The proper training, she said, must start immediately. Young workers -- or those on work experience -- who join a workplace and see a lax attitude to safety will soon adopt that attitude. Conversely, a new worker who sees safety standards being taken seriously will adopt a similarly professional attitude, Copsey said. With recent figures from the EU statistics office, Eurostat, estimating that there are five million full-time workers aged under 20 in the bloc's 25 member states, it is an issue more firms will have to address. High turnoverCopsey's campaign is also targeting casual workers, as well as contracted staff in industries with a high turnover of employees. Staff in those jobs, she said, are particularly vulnerable as thorough training can be seen as not worthwhile. But OSHA's message to managers is that even in these cases, the benefits of maintaining safety standards outweighs the costs. "If you provide good supervision, it better allows you to monitor the progress of new staff," Copsey said. "You also save the cost of bad publicity for poor safety, as well as the fines that go along with that and the cost of lost days after an accident and of training new, replacement staff." Retaining and properly training younger staff would also allow managers to capitalize on their enthusiasm and build long-term loyalty, she added. As well as providing information for young people and, in some cases, their parents, the agency is planning on helping employers with practical tips for supervisors and managers when the campaign kicks off. It also hopes for the importance of a commitment to occupational health and safety to form part of business school courses, to help the next generation of managers. "Health and safety shouldn't be seen as an extra drag for employers, it should be seen as a normal part of a sound management process," Copsey said. 
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