Canadian Occupational Safety

6 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com WORKPLACE NEWS PHOTO: WORKPLACE SAFETY AND PREVENTION SERVICES Major changes to how B.C. employers must investigate, report incidents By Amanda Silliker T he requirements for incident investigations have changed signifi cantly in British Columbia over the past two years. Nancy Harwood, lawyer and owner of the Harwood Safety Group, explained the changes in a session at the Western Conference on Safety in Vancouver on April 11. Under the new requirements, employers must complete a preliminary report within 48 hours after an incident. No matter the type of incident, whether it be a fatality or serious injury, major structural damage, major release of hazardous sub- stance, potential for serious injury (near miss) or injury requiring medical treatment, a preliminary report is needed. As of Jan. 1, a fi re or explosion that had the potential for causing serous injury has been added to that list, said Harwood. The employer needs to identify any unsafe conditions, acts or pro- cedures that may have contributed to the incident. The report must be given to the joint health and safety committee (JHSC). The new legislation is very prescriptive on what exactly the preliminary report must entail, said Harwood. Some examples include witnesses to the incident, the sequence of events that preceded the inci- dent and circumstances of the incident that preclude the employer from addressing a particular element. Interim corrective action must be taken as well, such as full or partial shutdown of a work site, removing equipment or reassigning workers. "You might decommission any of those units on any of your other sites, you're doing hazard alerts for your workers, you're making sure everyone knows what happened and that they are not to use these — whatever else you may think of in terms of interim corrective action because you don't really know the full extent of what's happened yet," said Harwood. A report on the interim corrective action must be produced that includes the names and titles of the people responsible for implementing the actions. The next step is a full investigation, which the employer must embark upon immediately after the preliminary investigation. A report of this full inves- tigation must be submitted to WorkSafeBC and the JHSC within 30 days of the incident. "Look for the underlying causes, dig deeper," Har- wood said. "You're going to start hiring experts, you may have the equipment looked at, you're going to be interviewing a lot of witnesses and you're going to try and determine the sequence of events and what can be done to take corrective action." Once corrective action is taken to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents, a report must be produced on that as well and it has to be submit- ted to the JHSC. WORKSAFEBC INVESTIGATIONS There are also changes to how WorkSafeBC con- ducts its investigations following a serious incident or fatality. Where there used to be only two teams of offi cers that would appear at a workplace, now there are three, said Harwood. The fi rst team is made up of safety offi cers that attend a site immediately follow- ing a serious incident, the second is a team that investigates and determines cause and the third new team attends to gather evidence for possible prosecution. The third team Ontario MOL urges C-suite to focus on mental health By Amanda Silliker K evin Flynn, Ontario's minister of labour, is calling on senior leader- ship to treat psychological safety the same as physical safety within their organizations. "I need you to take mental health in the workplace as seriously as you take health and safety. I need you to put fi rm and very concrete plans in place. I need you to talk mental health with other CEOs and leaders in your sector. We need to make this a regular conversation you have with people on a daily basis," said Flynn, speaking at the CEO Health + Safety Leadership Network roundtable as part of the Partners in Prevention conference in Mississauga, Ont., on April 26. Since 2003, Ontario has reduced physical workplace injuries by more than 40 per cent and Flynn said he would love to see a similar reduction for mental health and addictions. "Imagine if we could do what we did for physical injuries to the mental health injuries as well. Imagine what that would mean for those people, the employees, and imagine what that would mean for the bottom line of your company. Imagine the business case that goes along with that." Nearly one in four working Canadi- ans will be affected by mental health problems or illnesses, which lead to absenteeism, presenteeism and huge turnover, said Flynn. The minister issued a challenge to each and every director and C-suite leader in the room to think about what they can do to make sure their workplace is prevent- ing harm to workers' psychological health and well-being. "Ask yourself some questions: Do you have the supports in place for those who need them? Do you check in with employees who have psycho- logically stressful jobs? What can you do in your own organization to reduce stigma around mental health?" He also encouraged leaders to put themselves in the shoes of someone who may need to step forward with a mental health issue. "Would you feel good about step- ping forward? If colleagues found out you were dealing with these challenges, would they still trust you? Would you be seen as a reliable employee? Some- one that should be promoted?" Flynn said. "If the answer is not what you think it should be, perhaps you should put some things in place to change that." Kevin Flynn, Ontario Minister of Labour External infl uences motivate fi rms to improve performance: Study W hen workplaces make large improvements in occupational health and safety, it seems some type of external infl uence helps bring internal fac- tors into play, according to a study by the Institute for Work and Health (IWH) in Toronto. Important Factors in Common Among Organizations Making Large Improvement in OHS Performance: Results of an Exploratory Multiple Case Study found change was typically initiated by one or more external infl uences acting on the workplace, such as a government inspection, market pressure from industry clients or a serious injury happening in a similar business. As a result, new knowledge, especially about OHS management and risk con- trol, was sought out and brought into the workplace, orchestrated by a health and safety champion who integrated this new knowledge into the workings of the organization. This was done by developing policies and procedures and ensuring their implementation; co-ordinating and communicating with parties throughout the workplace; and following up on identifi ed issues. "Past research has identifi ed the characteristics distinguishing workplaces that do well in injury and disability prevention from those that don't," said IWH scientist Lynda Robson, who led the study. "But not much is known about how and why low performers in health and safety become good performers. This study helps fi ll that knowledge gap." The safety champion, a "knowledge transformation leader," is a key fi gure in the initiation of "breakthrough change," said the study. "Whether it was a newly hired OHS practitioner, someone already in the workplace given new responsibilities for OHS or even the owner, this person tended to have strong people and organizational skills with an ability to work easily with, and get the support of, workers, supervisors and managers," said Robson. Once the change process was in place, other common factors came into play, including: positive social dynamics, such as energized joint health and safety committees and worker empowerment; organizational responsiveness to worker concerns; supportive internal context, such as senior management support for OHS; good labour relations and low turnover; supportive simultaneous improvement in core operations, such as "lean" and quality initiatives; and a continuous health and safety improvement approach. In the end, these resulted in reduced risks in the workplace and, eventu- ally, fewer injuries. He also encouraged leaders to put themselves in the shoes of someone who may need to step forward with a "Would you feel good about step- ping forward? If colleagues found out you were dealing with these challenges, would they still trust you? Would you be seen as a reliable employee? Some- one that should be promoted?" Flynn said. "If the answer is not what you think it should be, perhaps you should put some things in place tended to have strong people and organizational skills with an ability to work easily with, and get the support of, workers, supervisors and managers," said Robson. Once the change process was in place, other common factors came into play, including: positive social dynamics, such as energized joint health and safety committees and worker empowerment; organizational responsiveness to worker concerns; supportive internal context, such as senior management support for OHS; good labour relations and low turnover; supportive simultaneous improvement in core operations, such as "lean" and quality initiatives; and a continuous health and safety improvement approach. In the end, these resulted in reduced risks in the workplace and, eventu- ally, fewer injuries. offi cers that would appear at a workplace, now there are three, said Harwood. The fi rst team is made up of safety offi cers that attend a site immediately follow- ing a serious incident, the second is a team that team attends to gather evidence for possible prosecution. The third team External infl uences

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