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I follow safety instructions — they didn’t make them as a joke

For Mathias Larsen and many other young Danes, a supermarket job is their first step into working life and their first meeting with work environment challenges — of which young people get more than their fair share.
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Young people and work environments

Young and newly employed people are particularly vulnerable in the labour market and suffer more often from accidents compared to their more experienced colleagues. Young Danish men between 18 and 24 run a 40 percent greater risk of having a workplace accident, while the risk to women in the same age group is a full 80 percent greater compared to the average. This is partly due to physical strains like heavy lifting and poor working positions. People between 18 and 24 report more pulling and pushing at work, more back-twisting work or working leaning forward and less sitting down time than people over 30.  

On the other hand, young and newly employed Danish workers feel they enjoy a better psychological work environment than their older colleagues in many areas — e.g. less time pressure, better leadership and fewer emotional demands.

Sources: Young workers’ work environment in Nordic countries, 2013, Work Environment and Health 2012, NFA, and more.

Five tips to help young and newly employed people get a good start at work
  1. Remember that young workers are as different as everybody else. They should not be treated as a uniform group. They are on very different paths in their transformation from youth to adulthood and from school to working life.
  2. Focus on how work is organised and on the work culture in which the young employee finds him or herself. The context in which they work is very important to their health and safety.
  3. All employees must be given a skills-based and effective introduction, training and continuous followup — including part timers.
  4. Avoid passing on bad routines to new employees. Find alternatives to peer-to-peer training or risk passing on bad habits and routines.
  5. Remember to secure a ‘no blame’ and educational work culture when it comes to negative events like accidents, bullying etc.

Source: Senior researchers Pete Kines and Johnny Dyreborg, The National Research Centre for the Working Environment and Mette Lykke Nielsen, The Danish Centre for Youth Research.

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