Young Canadians Question Tradition in Safety in Northern Ontario

Last week MySafeWork had an the great opportunity to joining with Dibrina Sure to bring the message of safety to 4000 students in the Sudbury ON area.

On Wednesday morning Students filled the Memorial Arena, a place where they usually go to watch the Sudbury Wolves play, to learn about career opportunities, while interacting with local business and union leaders.

Although every presentation is different we can always be assured that students will not be afraid to ask difficult questions. During this presentation we focused on safety culture as an issue relating to tradition. As an organization one of our main goals is to challenge the current status quo around safety culture and begin to show people that we can attain the "road to zero". As usual, during the Q&A portion of the presentation students lined the aisles armed with challenging questions for experienced leaders.

Here is a sample of some of their questions:

• Why do NHL players not wear full masks for protection and safety? Is is tradition?
• Why don't construction workers get tied off on the roofs? Is it tradition?
• Why don't all businesses offer Orientation? Is it tradition?
• In these tougher economic condition the traditional minimum wage job is now being sought after by adults -students are going to find it tougher to quit their jobs even if they might be unsafe-should we stay with the money and the job and risk injury?

I am convinced that the more we give young people knowledge about the workplace - the more power we will give them to challenge the status quo. The question is not, do young people care about safety - the real question is do we as leaders care enough to give them knowledge so that they can change the face of tomorrow's workplace.