The government is taking health and safety training for employees and workplace safety improvement seriously, but unless employees do their bit, achieving positive outcomes can become a big challenge. A recent poll by Safe4Life has some startling facts to reveal that indicates employee education about safety and its importance may be the need of the hour.
What does the poll say?
According to the poll, new, young employees in Ontario are less likely to ask about health hazards at the workplace and nearly half of the 500 workers polled said they were ‘embarrassed’ to do so. About a quarter of this number did not fully understand their rights in this respect. More than half the youngsters currently or previously in the workforce claim that their employers did not give them safety equipment. Among those who were provided such equipment, a drastically low 35% used them for a major portion of their work time.
Clearly, due diligence about whether safety norms are being met in the business are important, but so is ensuring that young employees watch safety training videos and understand the real risk that can possibly arise in the workplace. A check to verify the health and safety certificate of a business may need to be followed by a person-to-person interaction with a few workers, by the safety training consultants, to ensure that they are aware of the potential hazards.
