Rethinking Safety Leadership for New and Aging Workers

Injury trends among new and older workers are forcing safety leaders to rethink long-standing approaches and adopt data-driven strategies to improve training, reduce risk, and strengthen safety culture across the workforce.

• By Robert Pater
• Aug 06, 2026

Of course, you can’t change the past; nor does what previously happened necessarily foretell the future, though repeating results often befall when the same conditions persist. Savvy leaders understand how to glean perspective from past trends and marshal it to drive improvements. 

One person appropriately remarked that Power is the ability to change the future. Deflecting past tendencies is essential to counter the perpetuation of a status quo that’s not-so-quo towards better outcomes. By monitoring, pattern recognition, then formulating and implementing better strategies and actions. Basically, updating their leadership firmware.

Take a recent longitudinal assessment on who gets injured, the “2026 Travelers Injury Impact Report” (released on May 4, 2026) offers insights from an assessment of “more than 1.2 million workers compensation claims received by the company from 2021 through 2025.” (With my overview in italics below):

1. Fresher can mean more vulnerable:  New workers are at high risk: “37% of workplace injuries occurred during a worker’s first year on the job, resulting in more than 5 million missed workdays”, accounting for “roughly 34% of all workers' compensation claim costs.”

• Good news and bad news:  While injuries went down, severity increased: “The report finds that even as workplace injury rates decline, the injuries that do occur are growing more complex and taking longer to heal – a trend driven by an aging workforce and the disproportionate vulnerability of first-year employees. The decrease in workplace injuries is a positive story, yet injured workers are still missing an average of 80 workdays,” according to Claude Howard, Vice President of Workers Compensation Claim at Travelers.
• Same-old, biggest no-surprise? The most prevalent kinds of injuries continued to prevail: “Overexertion”-related injuries (strains/sprains) plus Slips/Trips/Falls accounted for 58% of all injuries! Topping the charts yet repeatedly. And we know a lot about soft-tissue injuries and slips/falls, having worked with numerous companies globally for over 3 decades to reduce injuries. 
• If these trends even somewhat ring true for your company, how might your Safety leaders utilize this data to tangibly improve performance and culture?
• First, consider why older and younger are more prone. (btw- determine the specific contributing forces in your organization.)
• Possible newer/younger worker influences:
• They don’t know how - inadequately trained in the actual, time-driven safest use of tools and equipment?
• Not used to working on company-mandated time/production pressures?
• They underestimate or dismiss safety issues – “10 feet tall and bulletproof”? 
• More readily distracted? Younger brains are better at switching attention and not as good at sustaining attention to an ongoing risk (e.g., using a power tool for an extended period).
• Their supervisors are either out of sight or don’t regard Safety issues for new employees in a realistic light
• Their coworkers don’t support their having a Safety learning curve?
• They think Safety is limited to what they do (or don’t do) only at work, so they develop and apply habits off-work that carry over (e.g., minimally effective manual handling) – or build up cumulative trauma from at-home activities?
• They pay too much attention to staying connected with friends and family during work shifts? 

Experienced/older worker possible risks:  

• Greater cumulative trauma – and/or previous now-hampering injuries?
• Lifestyle choices’ consequences catching up with them?
• Balance with aging tends to lessen for several physiological reasons, affecting both slips/trips/falls and strains/sprains?
• Agility/range of motion/flexibility typically decreases with aging? 
• As collagen breaks down, take more time to heal from any level of injury?
• Usable strength diminishes (Sarcopenia/age-related muscle loss reduces capability)? 
• Desire/need to work past normal retirement age even if not as physically able? Expect that they can work forever if needed?
• Aging brains are not as effective as quickly switching attention (better at sustaining focus)?
• Difficulties with new technologies & different ways of doing things? 
• Longstanding/ingrained habits that formerly worked well no longer result in as-safe work methods?
• May be more skeptical of Safety methods management puts into place that  they see as impractical? 

2.Second, plan for not-the-same-old strategies to attempt to reduce these injuries. The Travelers report indicated that the identified trends are designed to help companies implement training programs and processes to keep workers safer on the job. Here, from our experience, are some proven complementary leadership ways to approach Safety differently:

• Elicit input about and then bring in methods that both newer and experienced workers see as practical and impactful (making it more likely they’ll adopt these) 
• Better complement traditional operational Safety to also emphasize placing workers in greater control of their own Safety. For example, techniques for quickly strengthening balance, usable strength and attention control – which, in our experience, almost everyone values and can quickly assimilate.
• Place extra emphasis on at-home/individual-activity Safety methods – which tend to be embraced by all, develop baseline habits and may head off extra cumulative trauma.
• Pair up experienced workers as mentors with newer ones. Train the former effectively.
• Include a representative sampling of newer/younger workers in Safety and other committees.
• Implement a bottom-up approach where select workers are trained and supported to become Internal Safety Change Agents. We’ve seen remarkable successes with this approach over more than three decades at companies globally. 

These strategies have proven effective at simultaneously boosting Safety performance and culture in companies globally. The likely alternative to doing the same old things is more of the same (unacceptable) results, as well as potential loss of leadership credibility. And continued direct injury-related costs, draining/lost productivity, thinning/reducing worker coverage in companies that may be understaffed, and, importantly, adversely affecting workers’ well-being/living.

A word to the leadership-wise interested in changing the pattern, stemming the tide of these injuries?  Most important: Don’t settle for the unacceptable. Dysfunctional patterns can be altered. Try something different from what has been proven to offer only diminishing returns. Go beyond merely minor variations on the same theme. As the great Will Rogers remarked, “The secret of success is simple. If you’re in a hole, quit digging.”

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2026 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.