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.
Issue link: https://digital.carswellmedia.com/i/1164813
18 www.cos-mag.com Canadian Occupational Safety WHEN YOUR company owns and man- ages a few hundred properties across Canada and the United States, making sure all of your employees understand and adhere to your health and safety program can be challenging. "We do believe, as an asset com- pany, that our biggest strength is our people," says John May, director, risk management and insurance at Missis- sauga, Ont.-based Morguard, which has 1,200 workers in Canada. One of the foundations of the com- pany's safety management program is an internal communication website that houses all company policies and procedures, including OHS programs. This shared portal is designed for communication and recordkeeping. Site property managers load key docu- ments — building inspections, safety meetings, hazard assessments — on to the shared portal. The information of each property is then available for all property managers to view. One prop- erty manager can view the information of another site — perhaps one excelling at safety — and decide to implement similar initiatives at their own site. "In that way, we share or transfer a lot of the good or best practices, discussions, such as garbage disposal and safe mopping of the floor. The second prong — Did You Know? — is a quick-reference, one-page docu- ment outlining safe work procedures for a particular hazard. It's always avail- able for workers to stop and read. The third aspect is called Learning From Incident Reports. When an inci- dent occurs, the event, along with its lessons, is documented and shared across all sites. Supervisors and man- agers use that as a topic for discussion in safety meetings. "We want to facilitate the learning from an event at one site and try to avoid a repeat of that same injury at another site," says Berger. Morguard has also greatly increased the number of safety audits it conducts at its various sites. At its residential properties, for example, the safety team does onsite safety reviews twice annually: first, to do a formal audit; second, to do a followup. Each audit involves monitoring and measuring 12 elements of safety performance, such as first aid, fire and life-safety and incident investigations. Good or best practices are recorded and shared with other company sites. Gaps and weaknesses are highlighted. Working with the site managers, the safety team develops and implements an action plan within 30 days. "Year over year, we've seen an improvement in that our sites are implementing our compliance and safet y management programs," Berger says. The company has also recently reviewed and improved its security program, updating security procedures and policies at properties. They have upgraded equipment, such as cam- eras and DVRs, and enhanced security signage, door hardware and access, building inspections and patrols, as well as property security assessments. At Morguard, continuous improve- ment is always a priority. "We take a full approach to how we deal with risk, and health and safety is a big part of that," May says. "That really drives how we look at health and safety and how we try to do everything we can to make sure that we manage the well-being of our employees, tenants, guests and visitors the best we can." Services Niagara Casinos GOLD SILVER SILVER Western Camp Services and that helps us to engage and get a robust program going," says Darryl Berger, national manager, health, safety and security. Morguard has also developed a new communications plan. Based on the ISO 45001 OHS management sys- tems standard, the new, more formal program gets key safety information out to employees at all the company's property sites. The program has three prongs. First, newly developed toolbox talks deal with safe work practices for hazard- ous areas sometimes missed in safety MICHELIN PICTOU County in Nova Scotia has a highly trained emergency response team with 62 members that are trained firefighters and first responders. "I have personally seen it where within less than a minute we have MERT (Michelin emergency response team) members that are right there," says Trevor Hunt, environment and risk prevention manager. The team is not only critical in keeping the plant safe but also in keeping its surrounding communities safe. Most of the team members are volunteer firefighters, with 24 fire departments being served by Michelin employees across the region. Recently, Michelin's Why I Work Safely poster campaign was a great success in engaging its 705 employees in safety. Each week, a winning poster is selected and displayed throughout the plant. "It's about being able to enjoy your sports activities, your family is a big one that we get — people post pic- tures of things they are doing with their children or spouses — or travel. The gist of it is to connect to that emo- tion and to get people to think of what's really important," says Shaun Briand, site personnel manager. "Pro- duction isn't really very important in GOLD Rock-Tech SILVER SILVER Farnell Packaging Manufacturing PICTOU COUNTY