Canadian Occupational Safety

October/November 2019

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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14 www.cos-mag.com Canadian Occupational Safety "From a business perspective, OCWA benefited from this too because some of our non-clients heard about this, found out more and are now clients of ours," Plener says. "Companies and organizations want to work with other companies that do things safely." After looking at things from this "possible" lens, the staff quickly real- ized they could achieve what they thought they couldn't. They ended up improving safety for many different processes and tasks. The agency has a very elaborate health and safety training matrix for its 820 employees located across 10 regions of the province. The first level is common training for all employ- ees and includes a two-day safety overview course, Ministry of Labour mandatory training for workers and supervisors, an overview of the com- pany's health and safety portal and a module on how to complete effective incident reporting. Phase two is train- ing based on the hazards and risks A FEW YEARS AGO, a senior oper- ations manager at the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA) was tired of hearing his staff say that eliminat- ing certain work site hazards was not possible. In response, he launched the Achieving the Possible campaign for the northwest region and set out to shift the mindset of his staff. "He said, 'Nobody likes change, but we are going to make some changes and we are going to put our heads together and come up with how we can do things better, safer than how we have been doing them,'" says Randy Plener, director of occupational health and safety at OCWA in Toronto. To spread the word about this new commitment to health and safety, the region hosted a safety barbecue for staff and their families as well as clients, contractors and community members. The event spread the word that OCWA is really making safety a priority and keeping safety top of mind each and every day. By Amanda Silliker, Linda Johnson, John Dujay and Marcel Vander Wier Superheroes Safety Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Canada's Safest Employers awards! These 30 organizations heed the call on a daily basis and use their superpowers to keep their workforce safe. Visit safestemployers. com to watch exclusive videos of the gold winners, learn more about the nomination process and meet our independent panel of judges. PUBLIC SECTOR/NON-PROFIT Port Saint John GOLD SILVER SILVER Saskatchewan Government Insurance

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