Digitalising your “best in class” health and safety processes will not only support compliance, it will save you time and cost via automation, and also lead to a more engaged workforce, helping to cement a positive safety culture – which can lead to fewer accidents.
As a Health and Safety software partner, notify collaborate with you to understand your unique business requirements, and help to create a customised SHEQ solution that works for you and Spi5Star.
With Notify we can help you:
- Customise what your business reports on: from near-misses and injuries to environmental and quality events, choose the incidents you want your workforce to capture. Speed up investigations with real time notifications
- Customise your workflows: utilise automation to ensure that the right people are assigned the right actions, at the right time
- Customise your form templates: save time by creating and customising any type of audit, checklist or inspection
- Customise your safety dashboards: pick and choose what safety data you want to present, visualise, track and interrogate.
Every year, the courts and legal tribunals of Canada issue a number of crucial decisions that have a direct impact on your OHS program. So, it’s important for OHS coordinators to keep up with the new cases that are coming down each day. But that’s not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re not a lawyer trained in legal research. That’s why, in addition to our regular Month In Review, the OHS Insider puts together a list of the most important OHS cases that occurred in the previous 6 months. Here’s a briefing on what we believe are the 10 most significant rulings of the entire 2023 year and their practical implications for your own OHS program.
- Company that Hires Constructor Can Be Charged as “Employer” for OHS Violation, Says Top Court
The Canadian Supreme Court finally issued a landmark ruling with major liability implications for companies that rely on so-called constructor/prime contractor arrangements to guard against liability for OHS violations at projects where companies of multiple employers work. The case arose from the tragic death of a pedestrian struck by a road grader while crossing an intersection at a municipal construction site. Controversially, the Ontario top court ruled that the city could be charged as an employer for an OHS violation (failing to ensure that a signaler was in place) even though it had hired a constructor to oversee the work. In a split decision, the Supreme Court agreed that a project owner can be liable as an employer even if it’s not the constructor in control of the project. Result: The city would have to answer the charge and prove that it showed due diligence to comply [R. v. Greater Sudbury (City), 2023 SCC 28 (CanLII), November 10, 2023].
Winter Driving Safety & Compliance Game Plan
While it’s a perennial hazard, risk of injury and workers comp claims resulting from traffic accidents involving workers that drive company vehicles or that drive as part of their regular job duties is especially high during the winter. But what you might not realize is that failing to prepare workers to drive safely in winter conditions also exposes your company to liability. Here’s a briefing on your liability risks and a 7-step game plan you can follow to prevent workers from getting into winter traffic accidents.
Employer Liability for Winter Driving Accidents
Employers can be held liable if workers or other people get injured in a traffic accident caused by, say, a worker’s poor winter driving skills or a company car that didn’t have snow tires. Liability risks stem from 2 different sets of laws…
Cold Stress Hazard Assessment Checklist
Workers who have to do their jobs in extreme cold conditions, whether indoors or outdoors, may be exposed to hypothermia and other forms of cold stress. OHS laws require employers to do a hazard assessment to identify potential cold stress risks. Here’s a Checklist you can use to organize your cold stress hazard assessment and ensure it addresses all of the necessary risk factors.
High Visibility Apparel – Know the Laws of Your Province
The presence of moving machinery and human beings at the same work site can be a deadly combination, especially when work takes place at night or under conditions of low visibility. Most struck-by, back over and vehicle collision incidents occur because the operator didn’t see the victim. So, ensuring that workers have and use appropriate reflective and brightly coloured vests, bibs, coveralls and other high visibility (HV) apparel that makes them easier to see is crucial to preventing such incidents.
It’s also an essential requirement of OHS regulations. BC and Yukon have the most detailed and extensive HV apparel rules; by contrast, federal COHS regulations don’t address the issue at all.
Finally:
- Choose the modules: that meet your business requirements or implement our full suite – the decision is always yours
- Request a personalised product tour: See to see how hundreds of companies are using Notify to revolutionise their safety engagement and proactively reduce risk
Bio:Dr. Bill Pomfret of Safety Projects International Inc who has a training platform, said, “It’s important to clarify that deskless workers aren’t after any old training. Summoning teams to a white-walled room to digest endless slides no longer cuts it. Mobile learning is quickly becoming the most accessible way to get training out to those in the field or working remotely. For training to be a successful retention and recruitment tool, it needs to be an experience learner will enjoy and be in sync with today’s digital habits.”