Canadian Occupational Safety

20 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com credibility, then you'll be invited back to the table." Aldridge can be quite persuasive when advocating for the requirements of health and safety at the university. The hazard assessment process was a great example of this. "She went to each individual faculty and said, 'Here's what you need to do and here's why you need to do it,'" says Denise Howitt, manager, EHS systems and compliance. "It was a lot of work that was required by a lot of people and she convinced them it was the right thing to do. It's now a normal thing — almost everyone you talk to would know what a hazard assess- ment control form is." Aldridge has the ability to "meet people where they are" when dis- cussing health and safety initiatives, says Dalgetty. "She has a very soft way in bring- ing people along and getting them on board and, in her role, that is abso- lutely critical," she says. "It's a skill. It's not something a lot of people can do." Aldridge and her team are regularly out on campus talking to the different faculties and researchers. "It's not the health and safety department coming and hammering them. It's the advocacy and helping them understand why this is impor- tant to their staff, to their safety to their processes, to what they're trying to accomplish," Dalgetty says. One reason why this is a success- ful approach is because Aldridge is an excellent communicator. She is warm, enthusiastic and personable, and she comes across as a credible resource in everything she does, says Howitt. "A lot of people will go directly to her and ask for her advice on issues or challenges they are having," she says. "In a large institution, it might seem strange to go straight to the associate vice-president and say, 'I'm having this issue,' but they do and she helps them." Creativity is one of Aldridge's greatest leadership qualities. The university is a dynamic, ever-changing, diverse and complex environment, but Aldridge can always see the big picture and come up with innovative solutions. "When you have ideas, especially in post-secondary, the path to get there is not always linear and it might not be the path that you thought you would accomplish things by, but what Rae Ann does is she listens and responds and she thinks it through and she comes up with ways to do things to get to that end goal," says Dalgetty. When snow unexpectedly hit Calgary in early September 2014 — ultimately known as "Snowtember" — there wasn't an effective way to communicate with the staff and stu- dents on campus. So, under Aldridge's leadership, the university got a new emergency mobile app that everyone on campus can download, and it has been very effective. Another one of Aldridge's innova- tive ideas was to dramatically increase the number of cameras in the uni- versity's security operations centre. A few years ago, the system was very antiquated with just a smattering of cameras, says Dalgetty. Now, it's state- of-the-art with about 1,500 cameras (and counting) across campus, and security professionals from other uni- versities are coming to take a look. When Aldridge realized she was having difficulty engaging some of the lower-risk faculties in occupational health and safety (OHS), she knew she had to get creative. Aldridge and her team developed health and safety binders designed to assist departments in understanding their responsibili- ties, communicating about health and safety and collecting relevant docu- mentation for regulatory compliance and audit purposes. Each department identified an OHS management system co-ordi- nator, who received coaching on the requirements for keeping the binders up to date. Hundreds of binders were pushed out and Aldridge and her team are working with IT to try and put all the information online. "It has prompted a bit more activity in the administra- tive areas around health and safety," says Aldridge. "Those teams are now doing inspec- tions; they sent people in for first-aid training. It's continu- ing to shift the culture." Another way workers are engaged is through the Risk Shining Stars recognition program. Individuals in the university community are nominated by those within the risk portfolio for their outstanding contribution to safety. "We have shining stars all across our campus," says Aldridge. The University of Calgary's enterprise risk management (ERM) system used to fall under the finance department, so it was largely focused on financial risks. Then, the ERM was put under the risk portfolio — under Aldridge — and it was re-built from the ground up, says Howitt. It now looks at all the institu- tional risks, such as health and safety, disability management and security. The risk matrix is regularly used in decision-making at all levels of the organization. "It's part of our living and breath- ing institution as opposed to a paper checklist that lives in someone's drawer," says Dalgetty. Aldridge is lauded for her ability to remain calm during crisis situations, such as the Calgary floods in 2013 and the Fort McMurray, Alta. fires in 2016, when the university housed evacuees on campus. She takes in all necessary information and comes up with the best strategy. "That's when leadership really shows. It's easy to lead day-to-day when nothing is going wrong, but when there's a major event and you have a leader who is still able to be effective and is calm and compassion- ate and caring and responding to the people — not just the event — that's Rae Ann in a crisis," says Dalgetty. Aldridge joined the University of Calgary in 2006 as director of EHS. After working there for two years, she left to go work in Nova Scotia, but came back to the university in her same position in April 2011. Since then, she has climbed the ranks to associate vice-president of risk, a posi- tion she has held for 4.5 years. When asked how she got to this high level, she humbly says there was some "luck and timing" in her journey and cred- its "phenomenal teams and extremely strong support" from leadership. She encourages safety profes- sionals to be innovative and think outside the box when faced with "weird and wonderful" health and safety problems. "I think there is always a solution," she says. "It's sometimes not the same solution for every kind of circum- stance but I think when you bring the right people to the table, we can always find a solution." For example, after the univer- sity's poor baseline audit, Aldridge approached the deans of the higher- risk faculties to ask if they would each cost-share a position with the safety department. This resulted in health and safety professionals that report to the director of health and safety sitting within the high-risk faculties. They were able to meet regularly with their respective deans to help move the health and safety management system along. Aldridge is passionate about her OHS work and that extends beyond the walls of the University of Calgary. She sits on the board for the Alberta Association for Safety Partnerships and is the co-chair of the Campus Alberta Risk and Assurance Committee, which includes representatives from all the public sector institutions in the prov- ince. Recently, the group developed business continuity templates and produced a video to educate students and staff on how to respond in an active shooter situation. Aldridge wel- comes the opportunity the committee provides to help some of the smaller post-secondary institutions in Alberta. "I have lots of time to answer calls and entertain other post secondar- ies who come and ask me about our ERM program or our management systems," she says. What interested Aldridge in the industrial hygiene work nearly 30 years ago still rings true in her job today and is the reason why all the positions she has held throughout her career have been in occupational health and safety — that ability to make a difference. "It's the reasons I stay," Aldridge says. "Every day is something new here and I think with the right team I have in place we are able to be leading edge in terms of safety, security and risk management in general, and we have been able to do a lot of leading-edge changes to make sure our campus is a safe and healthy environment." She has a very soft way in bringing people along and getting them on board and, in her role, that is absolutely critical.

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