Safety Olympics: 60+ companies, 100 schools, 50 cities

I'm as excited as a schoolboy! Our fourth annual Our Youth at Work Simulcast is upon us, and it's (almost) as big as my ambition for the event! Executives from more than 60 major Ontario employers, such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Hydro One (they're sending six teams, including their president & CEO, Laura Formusa shown here), Weston Bakeries, Goodyear, Cineplex and many, many more - are standing up in front of thousands of high school students on April 18.

The students are their future employees, and these champion employers are speaking at 100 high schools in 50 Ontario cities to pass the torch of knowledge about workplace safety and respect.

I like to think of the event as our Olympics - and may the best company win... the best and brightest employees! It's a tough competition; the race for talent is like never before - as workers start to retire en masse and the demand for technically skilled jobs surpasses the supply.

Wanted: the best and the brightest

That puts young workers squarely in the driver's seat; you could say the teenagers are putting the executives' feet to the fire during our simulcast event - demanding real solutions and honest answers - beyond general niceties about how safety is good and companies care.

How do they care? The students want to know:

• What kind of orientation and training will I get?
• Is there a buddy system in place for me the first few weeks?
• What happens if I refuse to do work I'm not comfortable with?
• Do you have personal protective equipment? What if this safety gear doesn't fit me?
• Where are the hazards at your workplace?

These bosses get a chance to answer at our Simulcast event. Some employers like this model so much they're back for their second, third, even fourth, Simulcasts! Those repeat participants include Goodyear, Wal-Mart Canada, and The Woodbridge Group (their president, Bob Magee, shown here at the 2007 event. For the full set of photos from Simulcast '07, visit our Flickr group.)

Our 2008 Simulcast is the largest corporate and student force we've gathered yet. When Our Youth at Work started the simulcast event in 2005, we drew only six companies to speak at six schools!

Apparently, this form of recruiting young workers by spreading the safety message is catching on with employers - not to mention with school principals and teachers who eagerly invite the executives in.

Make some noise. Ask the tough stuff.

And why wouldn't it take off? Our participation model is the only program I know of that gives teens the rare opportunity to come face-to-face with executives and ask them tough stuff not always addressed in their job hunt.

We're starting to see a shift; today's young people are not the "put your head down, do your job and be quiet" kind of workers we were a generation ago. These kids expect lots of information about their well-being, and they're not afraid to make some noise to get it.

At Our Youth at Work, we give tomorrow's workplace leaders the platform to effect change - real, grassroots change - so that people stop dying on the job, stop getting mutiliated and disabled and chronically injured.

Pass the torch.

(For information about the 2009 Simulcast event - and how your company or school can get involved, please contact Nina at Our Youth at Work.)