Supervising and Communicating with Young Workers

About this course.

This course gives construction supervisors, leading hands, employers and workers a practical, plain-English guide to supervising and communicating with young and new workers on site. It begins by defining who these workers are — young workers, new workers, apprentices and trainees — and explains, without exaggeration, why they carry a higher risk of injury: inexperience and limited hazard awareness, reluctance to ask questions or speak up, eagerness to impress, and judgement that is still developing. It then sets out what Australia's model Work Health and Safety (WHS) framework expects: a duty to provide information, training, instruction and supervision that is suitable for the particular worker, which in practice means more and closer supervision for young and new workers than for experienced ones. From there it becomes practical — how to run an effective induction and set clear, specific expectations; how to match the level of supervision to the risk of the task and the competence of the worker, and increase autonomy as competence grows; how to mentor, check understanding rather than assume it, and build a culture where a young worker feels safe to stop work or ask a question; and how to recognise and prevent the psychosocial hazards that hit young workers hardest, including bullying, harassment and unsafe "initiation" behaviour.

The course keeps its legal statements general. It refers to duties by their subject matter rather than by citing section or clause numbers, and it points you to the primary sources you should read yourself. Because Australia's WHS laws are a national model adopted separately by each state and territory — and because Victoria runs a different Act altogether — the course repeatedly reminds you to check the rules that apply where you work.