Canadian Occupational Safety

June/July 2015

Canadian Occupational Safety (COS) magazine is the premier workplace health and safety publication in Canada. We cover a wide range of topics ranging from office to heavy industry, and from general safety management to specific workplace hazards.

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6 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com WORKPLACE NEWS Cyberbullying a growing problem at work: Report By Liz Bernier B ullying in a variety of forms, including supervisors bullying employees and cyberbullying, are a growing concern in Canadian workplaces, according to a report by the Conference Board of Canada. "Bullying is not just a problem in schools. We're seeing more instances of bullying in the workplace and employers need to recognize that workplace bul- lying is happening and that there are costs if the issue is ignored or poorly handled," said Ruth Wright, director, leadership and human resources at the Conference Board of Canada in Ottawa. "Bullying in the workplace has an impact on the organization as a whole. It refl ects a negative culture as well as performance and reputation." The most common type of bullying is top-down bullying, where a superior bullies an employee. However, lateral bullying (peer to peer) and bottom- up bullying (employee bullies superior) can also occur in the workplace, found the report, Workplace Bullying Primer: What Is It and How to Deal With It. One of the major means of bullying in the work- place is cyberbullying using email. Email allows people from all levels of an organization to place demands on each other, to jump the lines of author- ity and to shift the work queue. It may also allow those doing the bullying to feel anonymous, said the Conference Board. Technology and social media also allow for cyber- bullying, said Aaron Schat, associate professor at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, who was not affi liated with the study. "It could involve a text during a meeting, for example — a text from one colleague to another Injecting humour into safety messages can increase effectiveness By Amanda Silliker S afety may be a serious topic, but that doesn't mean it can't benefi t from a bit of humour from time to time, according to keynote speaker Michael Kerr at the Safety Services Nova Scotia Workplace Health and Safety Conference in Halifax. "To help us create a safer workplace, we need to tap into what experts truly believe to be our most human characteristic of all, our sense of humour," he said at the conference on March 24. When it comes to building a great, safe culture, it's not just what we say that matters, but how we say it, said Kerr. Humour makes people more approachable; it helps build connections and relationships and break down walls. Humour not only helps messages stand out, relevant humour reduces the "counter-argument part of the brain" — when people immediately start building arguments about why they are not going to do something — so people are more accepting of a message, said Kerr. "If you deliver a message, a rule, a regulation, a safety policy with a little bit of humour, studies show people are fi ve times more likely to go along with you if you do it in a funny way," he said. Some ways to do this are by using a top 10 list, opening with a funny story, using humour in safety videos — just doing something to add a little bit of humour into the mix. "We need to make sure we are coming up with creative opportunities to share our messages in more fun ways so we are truly effective and not just being effi cient." Another way to bring humour into the workplace is by starting a "humour fi le." Keep track of daily items that strike you as comical, such as a redundant warning label ("Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover") or a ridiculous question from a customer. It's just about choosing to have a sense of humour at work and fi nding humour in everyday things, said Kerr. "I'm not talking about telling jokes or being a standup comedian or being the offi ce clown; I'm talking about taking ourselves lightly in order to take our work seriously," said Kerr. "I'm talking about lightening up on ourselves and fi nding the humour in our day-to-day lives." Organizations that are the best places to work "put humour to work to drive results" and they are intentional about their culture, said Kerr. Culture is an organization's DNA, the combination of written and unwritten rules and the behaviours that make a workplace unique — and safety is an integral component, he said. "A safe workplace just doesn't happen and we know there's a relationship between safety and a great culture. It's a chicken-and-egg relationship in fact because it's hard to call yourself an inspiring workplace if people don't feel safe, if you don't have a great safety record. That's got to be a non-negotiable baseline, if we're going to call ourselves a great workplace." And many studies have found organizations with great cultures tend to have better safety records and fewer accidents. "It makes sense. If people are communicating better, if there are higher levels of trust, if people are working better together as a team, if you've got each other's back, then of course it's going to be a safer workplace," Kerr said. Piping, occupational disease concerns in oil and gas By Amanda Silliker G overnment offi cials from British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan shared the good, bad and the ugly within the oil and gas industry in their respective provinces at Enform's Petroleum Safety Conference in Banff, Alta. In general, all provinces reported good statistics from oil and gas in terms of injuries and fatalities compared to other industries, but their specifi c con- cerns and accomplishments varied. BRITISH COLUMBIA One positive trend seen in the B.C. oil and gas industry is managed camps, said Budd Phillips of WorkSafeBC. These are camps that are very deliberate in selecting their location, putting in place standards and rules and creating appropriate accommodations, he said. But unmanaged camps, commonly referred to as "Texas camps," are still around and they have given rise to food poisonings and fatal drunk driv- ing accidents. Crane use is another area of concern, as there were six signifi cant crane incidents in 2014. The use of explosives, proper rope restraint and pipelining and stringing pipe are also issues to watch. Occupational disease is an emerging issue. In 2014, WorkSafeBC received claims for 173 deaths, and 98 of those were the result of occupational disease. "What's a little bit disturbing about that stat is the predictive model said it was actually going to drop and it increased," said Phillips. "We see that rising trend and we are concerned about the future impacts on workers." WorkSafeBC will be visiting drilling and comple- tions sites to review their exposure control plans for naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMS), silica, oil based drilling fl uid, mercury and benzene. ALBERTA Derek Kearney from Alberta's occupational health and safety branch noted that the government's new ticketing and administrative penalties have not affected the oil and gas industry. At the time of the conference on May 6, Alberta had issued 55 tickets and 93 administrative penalties, but none of them had been in the oil and gas industry. However, there are 100 oil and gas employers in the province's "strategic inspection program" which identifi es employers with double the industry average for lost-time claims, disabling injuries, days lost and fatalities, said Kearney. "The challenge with oil and gas is when it goes bad, it goes really bad which affects how oil and gas is perceived and the risk around it," he said. The program includes 18 months' inspection where the government works with a company to help it make improvements. Some of the challenges the industry faces as a whole include new worker competency, contractor management and supervisor training. SASKATCHEWAN When looking at causes of injuries, metal pipe tubing is a key concern in the Saskatchewan oil and gas industry, said Kim Meyer, manager, OHS workplace safety south at the government of Saskatchewan. "Securing pipes, making sure that they're blocked off, making sure they're tied off. I can't say enough about that. We've had several injuries this year with just piping that wasn't blocked when it was loaded and guys got injured and crushed because of that," she said. There are "way too many" hand injuries, which do not seem to be decreasing, said Meyer, and hydro- gen sulphide (H2S) exposures are a concern. OHS inspectors are also fi nding self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) equipment is not being main- tained or inspected as it should be. The province's health and safety department is changing the look of its OHS offi cers. Now they will all wear a uniform with identifying clothing and trucks will be branded. This comes on the heels of several instances in southern Saskatchewan where people were going to work sites and posing as OHS offi cers, said Meyer. Piping, occupational disease concerns in oil and gas When looking at causes of injuries, metal pipe tubing is a

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