Cleaning businesses that treat induction as a compliance box, rather than a supervised learning process, are leaving young workers exposed, according to Logic Resources CEO Lorraine Rogic.
Following WorkSafe Queensland’s recent guidance on protecting young and first-time workers, Rogic has offered a detailed look at where cleaning businesses commonly go wrong and what a genuinely safe onboarding process looks like in practice. Her central argument is blunt. “The biggest gap I see is that cleaning businesses too often treat induction as evidence of safety, rather than the beginning of competence,” she says. A new worker may be shown the fire exits, handed a uniform and asked to sign a checklist but, according to Rogic, none of that confirms the person can actually do the job safely.
Young workers, she argues, carry a different risk profile to adults who are simply new to a company. “A young worker may be starting with very little work history, limited exposure to workplace hazards and less confidence to challenge instructions or slow the job down,” Rogic says. “They are not just new to the business, they may be new to work itself.”
The ‘tell, show, watch’ standard in practice
Cleaning hazards are practical hazards, and Rogic is clear that no form or handout can substitute for hands-on demonstration. “The standard I would expect to see is simple,” she says. “Explain the task and the reason behind the control, demonstrate the task properly, then watch the young worker do it and correct the behaviour in the moment. Too many businesses stop after the first step, treating a toolbox talk or a signed form as proof the worker is ready.”
Chemical dilution is the example Rogic returns to most often. “I would not expect a young cleaner to be safe simply because they have been told where the chemical station is or shown the safety data sheet,” she says. Instead, she wants supervisors physically demonstrating the process and explaining why concentration matters, then watching the worker repeat it, including knowing what to do if a label is missing or the area is poorly ventilated. Supervision itself needs to be matched to the actual risk of the task rather than rostered by convenience, with closer oversight for young workers using chemicals, working alone or on early or late cleans. “A certificate or previous experience may be relevant, but it should never replace watching the person perform the task in the workplace they are actually working in,” Rogic says.
Left unaddressed, these gaps produce a predictable pattern like injuries and near misses that tend to surface early, before a young worker has had time to build the judgement or confidence to recognise when a task has quietly become unsafe. Hazards frequently go unreported because the worker has not been shown how to raise a concern.
Building a culture where young workers speak up
Rogic is equally direct on culture, arguing that simply telling a young worker to ask questions if unsure puts the burden on the person least equipped to carry it. “For a young worker, the business needs to be much more explicit in answering questions like: Who do I speak to? How do I raise it? What happens next? Will I be treated respectfully if I get it wrong?” she says. What happens after someone speaks up matters more than any written policy, in Rogic’s view. A dismissive response teaches workers that results are valued above raising concerns.
She discourages placing young or inexperienced cleaners in solo or after-hours roles altogether, arguing they should be learning alongside experienced staff until they have demonstrated real competence. Buddying and scheduled check-ins should be treated as genuine safety controls rather than informal extras, she says, describing a ‘first four shifts’ process in which a supervisor demonstrates a task, a buddy prompts the worker with scenario questions and a supervisor checks in on what felt unclear or rushed.
For Rogic, the tone set in that very first response from a supervisor shapes everything that follows. “If a young worker hears, ‘good pick-up, let’s look at it,’ they learn that speaking up is part of the job,” she says. “If they hear, ‘don’t worry about it’ or ‘just get it done’ they learn the opposite.”
