Canadian Occupational Safety

O ne in fi ve employees at Quadra Chemicals is involved in the formation of the company's safety strategy. As members of either the local joint health and safety committee or the national safety steering committee, these workers are directly involved in determining the company's safety priorities. "The big thing here is it's not one senior person sitting in a room dictating what it's going to be. It's everybody in a participatory dialogue," says Walter Banas, regulatory affairs manager at the Burlington, Ont.-based company, which has 250 employees. High-risk positions at the chemical distributor have an extensive onboarding program that can take up to one year to complete. When an operator is hired to work in the warehouse where he will be handling dangerous chemicals, he goes through a training matrix "before he touches anything," and then he is handed off to a senior person who acts as a mentor, says Dan Riddell, regional operations manager. "He makes sure he knows his procedures, he knows how to handle it safely, knows his proper PPE and all the other procedures that fall in behind it before we let him loose," he says. "It's a high-risk, high evaluation process." Near misses are inputted through Quadra's service level improvement program (SLIP) that is used for all company issues, whether it be safety, distribution, environmental or customer related. This one-stop-shop has contributed to great participation from employees, says Banas. The system is set up to facilitate W hile acquisitions are an important growth factor for Weatherford Canada Partnership, they also pose a safety challenge, according to quality, health, safety, security and environment (QHSSE) director Wendy Wilson. The Calgary-based oilfi eld services provider has acquired more than 250 companies over the past 13 years. New companies often come with cultures and practices that may not mesh with Weatherford's — particularly when it comes to safety. "This means unravelling their cul- tures and rebuilding them as part of the Weatherford breed," says Wilson. "While the oil and gas industry is notoriously high risk, we know that it can change by bringing in the right people and harnessing their passion and knowledge." Wilson reports that a methodical, two-pronged approach to culture change has completely transformed Weatherford's Canadian region — which has 2,500 employees — and is helping to continuously improve the safety standard within the industry. In the last four years, Weatherford has seen a 75 per cent improvement in both recordable injuries and vehicle incident statistics, and a 90 per cent improvement in lost-time injuries. One driver of that change was train- ing for managers. Now, the senior unit managers are required to attend full-day, peer QHSSE reviews where they deliver presentations relating to their safety performance. This prac- tice ensures that they understand the importance of meeting safety requirements and are able to recog- nize high-potential incidents and root causes, and help develop best practices. The second driver was the creation of the HSE Excellence program. The program identifi es and engages the most infl uential employees at stra- tegic locations to act as health and safety champions. These individuals are educated on the strategies and skills necessary to lead cultural change at their work sites. The "champions" must deliver an action plan and continue to infl uence the safety attitudes and behaviours of their colleagues. All new employees (to Weatherford or a role), regardless of experience, are considered short service employees (SSE) for a period of no less than six months and are identifi ed with a green hard hat. All SSE are assigned a trained mentor who was selected based on experience, attitude and attributes. In order to come off the SSE program after six months, the employee has to demonstrate he has completed all assigned training and achieved his Level 1 competency standard. Rig operator Tyler Pilling confi rms that, since Weatherford acquired its continuous rods and well services division in 1998, the company's safety culture has evolved in both attitude and culture. "Our team leaders stand behind the motto that no activity is so important that we cannot take the time to do it safely," he says. "And our work family is just as important as the one at home." G O L D safety champions. These individuals OIL AND GAS S I L VER S I L VER Tarpon Energy Services Pronghorn Controls G O L D RETAIL AND SERVICES O involved in the formation of the company's safety strategy. As members of either the local joint health and safety committee or S I L VER S I L VER Morguard CHEP Canada 16 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com YEARS PowerStream Inc. is a community-owned energy company that delivers safe, reliable power and related services. PowerStream's vision is to "be a socially responsible company, committed to the environment and sustainable growth, leading the way into the future with boldness, innovation and best in class performance." PowerStream's Journey to Excellence is about the work we do each day; continuously improving our day to day tasks, encouraging and embracing innovation, while focusing on employee health and wellness. From Good...to Great... to Excellent...Together!

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