Canadian Occupational Safety

November 2014 15 2014 Canada's Safest Employers Awards. With 10 industry-specifi c categories awards give the opportunity to recognize companies from coast to coast all aspects of an employee's safety and well-being. C reating a culture of safety often requires a commitment from the top, and as a long-time proponent of safety initiatives in Alberta's long-term care sector, Shepherd's Care Founda- tion president and CEO John Pray ensures it is always on the agenda. "You need a board of directors that believes that health and safety is criti- cal and you need the CEO and the leadership team that believe in that. And we've had that here for 15 years," says Pray. Shepherd's Care employs a full-time health and safety man- ager, Jag Atwal, although the 750-employee organization is likely one of the smallest to do so, says Pray. This move, he says, has not only saved the organization money but also helped engrain safety into its culture. Under the watch of Atwal, Shep- herd's Care is streamlining health and safety at its six Edmonton-area locations through standing agenda items at its manager's meetings and health and safety committees, and by communicating any lessons learned throughout the organization. Incident investigation has greatly improved in recent years, says Atwal, with a shift of mindset towards deter- mining the root cause of injuries, rather than focusing on the specifi c incident itself. "I think that's probably one of the biggest wins for us. Now, we're able to actually determine the root cause of an injury (and) all 45 of our manag- ers have gone through an incident investigation training session." In response to a concern that staff are not overly familiar with hazard assessments, Atwal has also created a standard script for use throughout the organization. "Managers at each site now, as part of their department meetings, would go over the hazard assess- ments and communicate those hazard assessments to the individ- ual members so now everybody's getting the same message at the same time," he says. Shepherd's Care is also enrolled in Alberta's Continuing Care Safety Association's Take Care to Give Care safety awareness campaign at one of its sites. The program is designed to increase front-line employee awareness of health and safety risks within the work environment and communicate the organization's position to diminish those risks. The organization also recently became a partner in the Alberta Part- nerships in Injury Reduction program, which requires it to create yearly goals and objectives that are reviewed by Alberta Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour. throw this at them, rather project man- agers review the generic system with crews, come up with a plan that is spe- cifi c to their project and agree on it." This agreement is formalized by sign-offs from everyone on the site and promotes immediate buy-in to the system. Behind the success of the system and culture is a consistent application of safety processes and procedures. The company's 1,200 employees engage in safety huddles, job hazard analyses for less frequent jobs, weekly safety operations reviews and a stop- and-correct process — taking the time to correct a problem as soon as some- thing is identifi ed. "We address every incident, no matter how slight, so workers can see that we mean what we say," adds Beaudoin. The company also conducts thor- ough orientations. All newly hired and transferred employees must review the corporate safety culture presentation with the most senior management person on that proj- ect or in the company's head offi ce. And once a year, Cementation senior leaders hit the road and travel to all of its Canadian projects to present an annual safety re-orientation for all employees. Miner Adam Logan was initially nervous about going underground but in his half-dozen years of work- ing for Cementation, he is reassured by the knowledge that the company takes safety seriously. "They give you the power to stop and correct, and I've never been in a situation where I've felt forced to do something unsafe." According to Beaudoin, keeping safety top of mind plays an important role in accident reduction, as does a stable workforce. "Many contract employees stay with Cementation for a long time, going from one project to another," he says. "That helps to solidify the safety cul- ture because you are not constantly reintroducing it to new employees who may need to adapt to a cultural shift." He points out that building a mine takes years and often comes after lengthy engineering feasibility studies. While the work is not steady, many workers will return to Cementation when opportunities arise — even after moving to another company — because they believe in its safety culture . And that's just good business. • Sault Area Hospital • Calgary Laboratory Services SAFEST EMPLOYERS Health Care SILVER GOLD

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