Canadian Occupational Safety

30 Canadian Occupational Safety www.cos-mag.com updates and ways to course correct as needed. He also communicates milestones and metrics to senior leaders. To do this, Khan put in place a comprehensive data collection system. This system allows the recording, trending and investigation of all types of safety incidents, near-misses and various conditions across the organization. Khan also does an excellent job at engaging employees in health and safety. For example, he attends all JHSC meetings and there has been a signifi cant shift among that group over the past few years, says Bate. "Our health and safety committees are now engaged, they have plans, they have ideas, people's voices get heard and when they bring issues on the table, those issues get dealt with and they get addressed and they are part of the planning process," he says. Khan also spearheads an annual Health and Safety Day which involves local utilities, emergency services and health and safety partners. "I know health and safety is sometimes not the most exciting, sometimes it can be boring, but I try to engage everyone to be participa- tive," he says. "Maybe they are just doing it at work because they have to, but it is about engraining this into their day-to-day lives, so making safety off the job just as important as safety on the job." To further engage workers, Khan is committed to making sure they are part of the solution. "We rely heavily on our employees when we are looking to implement corrective actions. When it comes down to it, they are the experts running the machines who know exactly what the hazards are in the workplace, so we look to them to relate that information to us," he says. One example is when the company was purchasing an ergonomic roll lifter, it involved front-line workers in the process. "Instead of going out and buying a roll lifter and saying, 'Here it is,' we had the employees and ergonomics committee involved in testing the roll lifter to see which was the best fi t for their application," says Khan. As Mother Parkers was raising its OHS game, employees were asking what was being done about contractors. "Generally, contractors are on site and they are doing something that is out of the norm; it's not a normal part of our operation and that by its very nature creates risk from a health and safety perspective," says Bate. To address this, Khan put a contractor management program in place where all the expectations and standards are set before an external fi rm arrives on site. By the time these workers arrive, they understand the risks, they bring the proper protective equipment that may be required and they understand what they need from Mother Parkers to work safely, says Bate. "It just makes things a lot easier for everybody involved, not the least of which is for the employees to see them working on site and they realize they are being held to a standard that is a least equivalent to what we hold our employees to," he says. Khan was also responsible for stan- dardizing health and safety across all Mother Parkers locations: four manu- facturing plants, two distribution centres and one corporate offi ce. The project began with a hazard assess- ment at all the facilities to identify gaps and, from there, programs were devel- oped and training completed to ensure controls were in place, says Khan. "Now when you go to any of the facilities, we have a Mother Parkers best practice, so we go above and beyond the legislation," he says. Khan's strong health and safety education and experience goes a long way in ensuring success at Mother Parkers, says Bate. He holds an environmental management degree from the University of Toronto and an OHS certifi cate from Ryerson University in Toronto. He is also a Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP). "He brings realistic solutions based on his education and experience," Bate says. "It makes it so much better when yes, it's good to identify opportunities for improvement, but to then be able to marry that up with specifi c actions that can mitigate risks and deal with issues we fi nd." And if Khan doesn't know the answer, he reaches out to support groups in the community, says Nagy. He is a member of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's Safety Groups Program, which includes best practice sharing and program development. He is also a member of the CEO Health + Safety Leadership Network, a group of leaders brought together by Ontario's Workplace Safety and Prevention Services to shape health and safety policy and spur transformation on a large scale. Given that sustainability initiatives are very important to Mother Parkers, Khan's ability to work independently at a high level and to lead is extremely important to the company, says Joe Navin, vice-president of operations. "From a senior level in the organization, we have extreme value for Adrian," he says. Navin also sites the high quality of Khan's work and his ability to work with partners inside and outside the company as other reasons for his award-winning safety leadership. "I have always said, 'Give me some- one who is smart and hungry and they will get the job done and we will work together and teach them what they need to know,' but with Adrian we have not had to do much teaching, he has been teaching us."

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