Challenges Facing Young & Female Workforce Industrial Settings" - Nuala Reilly, CRST Health & Safety Professional

This podcast features health & safety expert Nuala Reilly discussing the challenges young and female workers face in industrial settings. Nuala highlights the need for tailored orientations, hazard awareness, and hands-on supervisory guidance to ensure workplace safety.

Transcript

Perley Brewer   0:58
Welcome to today's Podcast.
My name is Perley Brewer and I will be your host.
Today's broadcast guest is a new Ella Riley I, Hilton Safety professional here in New Brunswick.
Who was here today to talk to us about some of the challenges facing today's workforce, specifically as it applies to both the young workers and female workers?
Welcome nola.

Reilly, Nuala   1:18
Thank you so much for having me back, Perley and I just wanna start out today with with a couple of real quick things.
First of all, I am so proud of being a part of this Podcast.
I think this is such a valuable conversation that continues on in New Brunswick and outside of New Brunswick, even if we have listeners that come in from other parts of the country and also today is such an auspicious day to be recording this podcast, because it is not only the day of mourning, it's also a federal election.
And I think now more than ever, people are really paying attention to what's going on in the world and making sure that we have leadership in place that continues to fund programs that promote safe workplaces.

Perley Brewer   1:57
Yeah. Certainly.
That's a big emphasis for us.
So today, nearly we wanna talk about young persons coming into the workforce and we wanna talk specifically about field industrial remote locations versus an office environment.
One concern I've I know I've had over the years is that you know, we have so many young people now coming into an environment that they may not be as familiar with as, as perhaps past generations would have been.
So today we want to focus on on the industrial side of workplaces.
So given today's youth and and what some people would say is a very heavily computer game focused background, uh, how has it changed?
What?
The youth bring into the workforce compared to, say, what someone might have brought in, say, 20 years ago.
Both the good and the bad.

Reilly, Nuala   2:51
This is such a great way to start this conversation off too, because we do have a completely different kind of worker that comes into the workforce today, especially kids that don't go into an immediate post secondary stream and they jump right into a workplace situation, whether that's through their high school years or after high school years.
And compared with when I first came into the workplace and even as early as 10-15 years ago.
Insider coming in and young people that are coming in literally have access to the world of information at their fingertips.
They they have it in their pockets, it's a blessing and it's a curse.
And there are challenges that go with that.
So one of the biggest positives that I've really seen is that especially young people who are who are really into like the immersive games that we have out today, those really enormous kind of game landscapes, they grow up kind of immersed in these scenarios and it really gives them this kind of ability to see a larger picture of a situation.
But not only that, especially the ones that are really, really big gamers, they kind of get accustomed to in the game world, really drilling in and trying to find the impossible to find things.
If you ever hear them talking about finding Easter eggs in games and things like that, which means when they're in a workplace there, we really should be honing that skill because they have a unique ability to take a look at the bigger picture.
But to find the really specific and unique parts of it that maybe someone in my generation isn't really noticing or may not think of their ability to really think creatively in an entirely different way is just it's unbelievable and something we absolutely should be tapping and the unfortunate flip side of that though is that in a lot of these types of games, there's not really any consequences for being reckless.
And in some of these games, you're actually rewarded for being reckless.
It's it's part of the fun and the attractiveness of the game.
And so a young person who's been immersed in that part of it may come into a workplace and not be able to really, especially industrial ones, high risk out in the field.
And they may not be able to recognize immediately that the recklessness side of that in real life actually has some fairy dire consequences.
And maybe not just for themselves, but for their coworkers, for their environment.
So it really takes anywhere from six months to two years for a young worker to kind of get fully immersed in understanding the environment that they're working in, especially when they're high risk, which you know, two years may seem like a long time, but it takes a long time for someone to relearn muscle memory and get acclimated to their surroundings.
So the higher the risk, the environment, the more remote, the more challenging, the more time.
I think young people need to get thoroughly trained in it.

Perley Brewer   5:53
So a lot of the legislation that's in place starts about orientation for new workers and deals with I I think pretty generic topics when it comes to making sure that the new worker knows there who the supervisor is and joint health and Safety Committee information, a lot of what folks would say are pretty basic information.
What should be in an orientation for a new worker for a young worker when it comes to an industrial site which is to me especially different than than, say, an office environment or an environment like that?

Reilly, Nuala   6:25
But.
Oh yeah.
Absolutely.

Perley Brewer   6:33
No.

Reilly, Nuala   6:33
And if going into an office environment, I mean every every job, regardless of where it is, has standard things that have to be part of an orientation.
But when you're going into an office environment, you know you can kind of keep that pretty even across the board of the things that need to be put into the orientation.
But when you start going into higher risk environments and really challenging and unique environments, there's the more high risk, the more challenging, the more diverse and unique that orientation should be.
So then it would actually make me want to ask a bunch of other questions, like when was the last time that your entire leadership team was in that environment?
Oftentimes, the leadership team, you know, especially the high leadership team, the general managers and such, they're, you know, they're not in the field very often.
They might come and do a touchstone.
When was the last time they came down and took a really good look around?
When was the last time you were assessed the general risk of the area that people are going into and then took a look at your orientation and make sure that you are meeting all of the key touchstones that you need for that risk?
I'm I also really want to highlight too that, um, you should talk to your recent hires about six months to a year after you've hired them and say now that you've been here for some time, how did you find your orientation?
What were the things you found really useful, and what did we kind of miss that you saw once you got into your workplace and you the same thing with your supervisors.
How prepared were these new workers when they came to you and talked to your long term employees?
The ones who get partnered up with them doing the actual work.
How prepared were they when they came in?
Are we missing something that maybe we should have caught at the orientation and knew higher level to kind of help not only get that new person that young person in through their their orientation period and their their training period, but also to help you who are already there in making sure that you have someone that's well prepared and ready to recognize the situation that they're in and be able to act and learn according to it.

Perley Brewer   8:41
So what kind of hazard should you focus on to ensure that they they do understand the the complexity and the dangerousness of the industrial type workplace?

Reilly, Nuala   8:53
Well, it really think that it can't be done from a silo.
So myself is the Safety person I would be doing a disservice.
Not only to my new workers coming in, but also to the teams that I already have in place.
If I wasn't on site and constantly being in person and aware of what it is that's going on in the workplace and whether there have been changes or things that we need to adapt to and and gear, our new worker orientation and their their onboarding process to those changes, you can't really do that from a distance and from an arms length you have to really be boots on the ground and in place so that you understand it first hand.
And if it's impossible to do that for whatever reason, people are doing all kinds of remote work these days, then you need to get connected with the people that are on site and set up those meeting times and talk with them and talk through it because they are the experts of what it is to be in that particular workplace.

Perley Brewer   9:48
From a supervisory point of view that that you are referencing in in your own way, and I often talk to supervisors about the importance of spending time with the new worker and a specifically, I guess with young workers because of the of the high rates of injury that they have and what kind of comment would you make to her supervisor when they hire a young worker?

Reilly, Nuala   10:13
Um, I would let them know that if they have children that's helpful because a lot of them are somewhere in the neighborhood of my age, and if they have kids, then they've kind of seen what it's like to have the kids today that I've grown up in this era of the cell phones and the Internet and everything being literally at your fingertips.
So they'll understand it a little bit better and because they can relate to it in their own familial way.
If they don't, though, I generally try to get them to think about bringing in their parent because and and this is not to sort of be ageist, but there are similarities in understanding the changes of technology and the way that we address systems today.
And so a person whose grown up with this is going to relate differently to a person who is never had this until they were in their later in life phases, like my parents for an example, still have like a desktop computer and they have a prescribed time of day that they like using it.
They don't like to use it like I do all day everyday.
A young person is going to actually probably experience some anxiety if they don't know where their cell phone is at all times, and that they're able to access it.
In the case of an emergency, so there's both different sides of the spectrum to look at, and a supervisor needs to be able to understand and & bridge that.
So when we're talking about bringing a new person in and talking to a supervisor, you know, every every workplace is going to have its specific rules and policies and.
And of course, those are very important to be followed, but we have to understand how to relate them to a person who has grown up with maybe a less stringent.
Boundary set upon them throughout school and throughout their childhood, and coming into the workforce with a different mindset to the one that we have in my generation of people.

Perley Brewer   12:05
Now, was that not a challenge in itself?

Reilly, Nuala   12:08
It absolutely is, especially when we're talking about high risk work areas and remote work areas because oftentimes cell phones are completely banned or there may not even be self service.
And then you also have to factor in that there may be other things that are high, high needs that we didn't really talk about a whole lot when my generation was young and starting to come into the workplace.
We have a lot more people that need to have access to Epipens.
We have a lot more people that need to have access to, um, important medications that are timed or.
You know, breathing assistance with the with asthma or with other kind of air flow problems.
So if they don't understand from day one what their access is gonna look like, I'm where these things are gonna be for them.
Who is their their point person?
Their touch person, their safe person.
You know that's gonna be it's gonna create some panic and some some distrust from day one.
And it's not that workplace is set up to create that kind of environment.
It's just that today's young person and speaking from the experience of having, you know, children in their 20s, there are accustomed to knowing where these things are at all times.
And so if we are able to show them right from the very first day that yes, this is something we do take into account, even if they're not allowed to access them on their own time, you know, while they're working beyond their phone, walking around just the safety of knowing that it is there.
And knowing that it's available and sometimes be the thing that kind of gives them that moment of trust, the fact that we thought about it and said, OK, you, you do have this access or you don't have this access.
But here's where it will come in.
Back into play for you.
You know, they really like to have the information because that's what they're used to.
They're used to having all the information all the time.

Perley Brewer   13:58
What about the physical hazards machinery that they may not be familiar with from a point of view that you know they've grown up, they they haven't worked on vehicles?
I haven't maybe worked part time in, in, in and around a lot of equipment, so all of a sudden you're putting them into an industrial type location.
Lots of moving equipment.
Lots of very dangerous equipment.
How do you handle that?

Reilly, Nuala   14:22
That's actually great question because we are talking specifically about high risk environments, remote environments and & environments with you know a lot of heavy machinery and equipment.
And that is definitely a piece of of what I do in my work as well.
So I think it's very, very important to stress right from the beginning that you cannot jump onto a piece of equipment and just start tinkering and learning.
It's it's.
It's vital that you pair up young people with an A more experienced person in their workplace when they're coming into that specific kind of an environment.
It's absolutely vital because you know they're they're such a curious and inquisitive and.
Incredibly interested bunch of people.
I I've I've yet to meet any young people that we've brought in that haven't wanted to get hands on right from the beginning there.
There's so interested in it all they wanna get in.
They wanna get their hands dirty and touch it and it's it's challenging to let them know that.
No, you actually can't until we go through steps ABCD&E 1st and having an an excellent buddy or a person paired up with them in that workplace who can harness that enthusiasm but measure it out with the cautious approach is completely vital to making sure that we're setting them up to, yes, learn and touch eventually.
But be aware of what it is that you're getting into before you get your hands on it.

Perley Brewer   15:51
So more women are also getting into these kinds of industrial situations as well.
What kinds of challenges do they face?

Reilly, Nuala   16:00
Come so from my own personal experience too, because I spent most of my working adult years in office settings.
It's not only it's not till recently that I pivoted into working in industrial heavy equipment and remote workplaces.
So I I've experienced this and it's something I start to talk about a little bit more when I'm doing a speaking engagement of any kind.
If you as a listener, close your eyes for a moment and think about a movie and the movie set is opening on a big open field, there's dust and dirt everywhere.
There's trucks, there's cranes, there's piles of materials, there's piles of strapping or chains.
There's a big, heavy tools around and there's a lot of people rounding around and you see a woman walk into this scenario.
Are you watching a comedy?
Probably not, and in fact you're probably hearing some ever so slightly ominous music.
And it's not because this is inherently a dangerous situation.
It's the unknown that is dangerous, so I don't know.
I think of any women at all who haven't experienced that feeling at least once in their life.
Maybe it was at a workplace and maybe it wasn't, but we have all experienced that feeling and so that very first day, one, that moment of walking into a high risk or a remote or a very industrial environment is a scary one.
Um, we really need to be aware of everything in our surroundings and you know you can't walk through a workplace with your keys laced through your fingers.
So who is that safe person and where is your safe places?
Identifying that is really key for women on a day one.

Perley Brewer   17:50
So what kind of situations are they going to encounter and what strategies would you recommend for them?

Reilly, Nuala   17:57
Well, ironically, I don't think I have actually heard too many.
I've heard a few, but not too many actual stories of women encountering.
Being in physical danger from that first day and and I'll stress again, it is the unknown that is the most scary thing.
So I'll use myself as an example walking into my workplace on my very first day.
It was remote.
It was and very high risk environment.
It was very filled with, you know, all kinds of materials and tools and things that just kind of give you a little bit of nervousness.
I think the approach needs to be one that happens before that first day on the workplace.
So now when I bring in students or women, or even just new young people tomorrow replace, I'd like to make sure that we have some time before that first day on site to have an informal conversation, something that's off the actual office.
Go for coffee, especially if I can bring in somebody from my existing work group.
Now they have an ally, and they've had someone that they've met outside of that workplace, um, and we can keep it casual and make it friendly, because establishing that trust right from the very beginning before you set foot into an environment that might make you very nervous or uncomfortable, it does wonders to kind of take away that fear of the unknown, because now you haven't.
You may have an unknown physical location, but you don't have an unknown personnel around you.
You have at least one person you've already met them.
You have that comfort level established and it removes so much of that anxiety of what possibly could happen and couple that with knowing immediately where your exits are, where's the bathroom, where can you go for a safe moment?
Is there a lockable space anywhere you start to really really feel like you need to lock yourself away.
Those are really important things for that day one.

Perley Brewer   20:00
On workplaces.
Uh, women I I guess you could say.
We're certainly encounter situations that you know some people say they're funny, but in reality they may be inappropriate.
May make especially women.
I think more uncomfortable than than what you would find with men in a situation.
And how do you create and foster a feeling for a female to be safe on the job and feel protected at the same time?

Reilly, Nuala   20:30
That's such a good question.
So I'm I'm almost 50 and I'm at a phase of my life now where?
Excuse me, I'm very comfortable with and certain kinds of language.
In fact, I would be the first one to probably drop some language.
I'm very comfortable with certain amounts of jokes and I'm very comfortable with the men that I work with, and while we have that environment, we also have very clear boundaries and lines in place.
There are things that are not funny, and sometimes that line is not well understood by all.
There's of course policies in place.
Every workplace has them for safe and respectful workplaces, and those absolutely should be followed.
But there has to be room for people to be themselves and to bond.
A lot of the times bonding is done over jokes and silliness.
I'm I understanding really well your audience is absolutely key here because those little jokes, those comments, the ones that kind of skirt the line of what's maybe appropriate or maybe not quite, it's going to mean something different for every single person I have spent most of my adult life around, you know, laborers, construction workers, truck drivers.
My line is gonna look very different than a 23 year old young woman who has graduated her HR program and is coming into a workplace and meeting the team for the first time.
Her lines gonna be completely different from mine.
So first and foremost, a safe and respectful workplace has to be just that.
There, it's there for a reason.
It needs to be safe.
It needs to be respectful if you have a new person, regardless of their a woman or not coming into the workplace.
Get to know them first, maybe before you start getting into what's funny and what's not funny.
And if you're not sure, air on the side of keeping it to yourself.
And this is something that I have said with with all of our people on board, you know, they know when I'm around that I love a good joke and that I will probably speak on the same level as they do with the same kind of language that they do.
But they also know that if the DM's on board, none of us are talking to him like that.
And you have to have that level of respect for every new person that comes into a workplace.
You need to get to know them and where their lines and boundaries are before you decide this person's an OK person to swear around, or this person's an OK person.
Do you, you know, maybe make an OHV?
My God joke about because some people don't even like that and you have to be respectful of that.
Workplaces are about respect and trust above and beyond everything else.
If you don't have those things, your team's gonna fall apart.
If your team falls apart, your safety and your production is gonna fall apart.
So those have to be there as your cornerstones and they really should be the first thing that you think about when it comes to cracking that joke.

Perley Brewer   23:24
So you're at an orientation session, primarily the audience in front of you.
Where are young workers?
Female workers, they've covered all the the basic normal things that were covered in an orientation, and someone looks at you and says, hey, I have a question.
What's it gonna be really like out there in the industrial type environment or in a remote location?
What's it really like out there?
What am I gonna do?
In fact, in affect experience, when I go there, how would you answer that?

Reilly, Nuala   23:58
I mean, I can give them the technical answer for that.
So I can tell them you're gonna be in a dusty environment or a hot environment, or you're going to be on a long day and you'll be tired.
You'll be on your feet a lot.
I can't tell that person how that experience is going to affect them, so I will usually go and spend the first day or two with them in the field, especially if I've got a group that is starting around the same time so that I'm there as a touchstone because they have already met me and they have that comfort level with me.
I hope at that point, but you know you you have to be realistic about what the conditions are, that they're going into.
Our people work outdoors in all weather all year round.
If I'm hiring somebody new in January, they need to be aware that they should be wearing some layers that they are, you know, encouraged to go in and warm up inside every so often so that they're not getting too cold, that if they don't feel that they have the proper type of glove, that they should let us know, we can provide that.
We have that for them, but we also work in the dead of summer as well, and we're still outside.
It's scorching hot.
There's all kinds of different things to pay attention to, and when you talk about those things too, you have to talk about is there a high dust environment going on?
Is there, you know, a chance for them to be exposed to fumes where they're at, they need to know the actual technical things that are they're about to be exposed to.
And I mean, that's my responsibility as a Safety person as well as to make sure that I'm aware of all those things I have to be able to answer these questions because there may be specific things I'm required to provide for them that are specifically going to help them alleviate these things, noisy environments.
And and this is where I kind of come back to getting to know.
Like what?
Your person needs.
Maybe it's an EpiPen.
Maybe they need an inhaler.
Maybe they need earphones because they're highly sensitive to sudden loud noises and the environment you're about to send them into has a lot of those around because industrial environments really do have a lot of sudden loud noises or continual loud noises.
It doesn't mean that that person can't work there.
It just means that you need to be able to provide for them the way that best helps them adapt to that new situation.
So conversation and having those talks and understanding where your person's coming from absolutely paramount to being able to say yes, this is the environment you're going into.
But guess what?
We've thought about this for you, and here's what we're gonna provide you so that you're gonna have your best chance to go in there and be able to learn really well.

Perley Brewer   26:38
So the incident accident rate and fatality rate very high for new and young workers.
Why do you think that is and what do we need to do to change that?

Reilly, Nuala   26:52
Yeah, it is.
It is continuing to be very high and I love that you said new and young workers, so we do run some kind of a refresher orientations for our entire crew every year.
I'll go in person and do this.
And the reason being is that we have periods of non work.
We have periods of downtime and there are significant they go from weeks and sometimes even months because we are a seasonal operation.
I like to remind people that being a new worker does not necessarily mean you're new to that work.
It might mean that you've had a hiatus for a few months, or it might mean that you've been at that company for years.
But you're about to move into a different position, redoing and renewing and repeating orientations and hazard reminders.
Risk reminders are paramount to trying to reduce that risk, that in that injury risk, and as I did mention earlier, too young people, especially if you've got young men that are coming in, that are gamers and have been playing for a long time, are coming from immersive worlds where there are no consequences to risky behaviors.
The risky behaviors is the thing that we need to get in front of when we're introducing them to a very high risk environment.
We want their enthusiasm and their thirst for learning.
We don't want them to jump into a situation without pausing to really take a very good look at it.
So that's why it's so important to keep repeating these things.
You can't learn a muscle memory if you're not repeating the action that goes with it.
I heard a really good speaker about a year ago talk about doing first aid training and how you're required to renew it every three years.
And he said, you know, after 25 years or so working, he said he's done it so many times, he could pretty much, you know, repeat it in his sleep.
And he was kind of rolling his eyes like, God, I gotta go through this again.
And then after 25 years in his role, he actually had a medical event at work, and he responded.
And what he said was that it was a muscle memory response.
He didn't even remember that he had gone through the Training like he didn't recall into his brain as Ohi went through this training.
And this was day one and we went.
It just was a reaction, and that's what you're trying to achieve, is that repeatedly going over and checking in and renewing information and retraining information is going to eventually create that muscle memory in the brain where you take a look at this new environment and go oht.
Yeah.
No, I'm not gonna do this until I do.
XY and ZED because that's the training that I've had over and over and over again.

Perley Brewer   29:37
Now you mentioned risk quite a bit and so do the the tendency for risky behavior.

Reilly, Nuala   29:39
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   29:43
Do you find young people that that you've encountered over the last two to three years?
We'll we'll ask questions or they just more towards doing rather than asking questions and it's out of concern.

Reilly, Nuala   29:57
I'm giving it real blend.
Yeah, I'm getting a real blend of both.
I I'll get the ones that are are full of questions and that's wonderful.
And then I'll get the ones that will come in and they'll see the older workers around them and they're just trying to be like them and they'll jump into things with action before they think about it.
I've had people reach for something without a pair of gloves on as a reflex.
Almost so.
There's a real big blend of both and the great part about the ones who asked the questions is that they are the perfect springboard to create more conversation.
So if I've got a group of even two and one's the question asker and ones the doer, I'm gonna take that opportunity to grab both of them and go, hey, you know, John had a great question.
So let's talk about this together and talk it through or I'll grab their supervisor and say, you know what your guy, John, over there, he had an awesome question.
Why don't you gather everybody and we'll do a toolbox on this real quick and get some of your senior people to be the ones that talk on it because they're the ones that have been doing this for a while and they and these, the young people are really looking up to them.
So let's get them to lead this.
Any question asked is an opportunity and even the questions that aren't asked and the actions that happened are still an opportunity that action actually becomes the question.

Perley Brewer   31:15
Looked like it's a terrific topic and you certainly have a lot of knowledge to share, like to thank you very much for taking the time today.
I know you're very busy and we certainly appreciate you you sharing your insights with us for our listening audience.
Thank you very much for listening and we will talk to you again this time next week.
Thank you.