July 2007

Service sector grapples with communication challenges
How do we manage the information needs of an extraordinary labour pool?


How difficult could it possibly be to teach service sector employees the right way to flip burgers or make hotel beds? Far more difficult than many can even begin to imagine say health and safety managers in the service sector, who grapple with more issues than many of their counterparts in other sectors.


What's the context for this claim? Here's a snapshot of Ontario's service sector:

•	Largest component of Ontario's economy.
•	Employs 74 per cent, or 4.6 million people.
•	Many of those people are adolescents, retirees and immigrants (Ontario receives the majority of immigrants to Canada and more than 50 major languages are spoken in this province ).
•	Defined by part-time, contract and seasonal work.
•	Nature of that work leads to lower levels of education and pay scale.
•	Significant portion comprised of small business employing 20 or less staff.

And what can be intuitively "assumed" from these observations, as it relates to health and safety in the service sector?

•	Large pockets of English as a second language.
•	Challenges with visual (videos; manuals; fact sheets) and auditory (workshops) learning.
•	A preference for experiential or tactile learning.
•	Less motivation and commitment to a job than other sectors.
•	Limited resources in small business to focus on health and safety training.

Certainly these issues and challenges are relevant beyond the boundaries of health and safety, but nowhere are they more critical.


How do service sector employers find innovative ways to engage and support this growing workforce with its communications challenges? The quality of the questions will determine the effectiveness of the fix.

•	What is working in other sectors? Other countries?
•	What paradigms are we falling to prey to?
•	What can be learned from apprenticeship programs about how to adapt to different learning styles?
•	How can information that makes people effective, healthy and safe be made more accessible, for example through pictographs?
•	What have other industries and sectors with similar challenges done; for example, can we learn anything from the transportation sector?

These are some of the questions the OSSA is addressing with health and safety partners at strategy tables across the Ontario prevention system. We invite your thoughts and ideas. Contact us at info@ossa.com.

What OSSA Told the WSIB About its Plans for Accreditation
Here's the inside scoop on OSSA's recommendations to the Board


In the last edition of The Advocate, we encouraged you to accept an invitation from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) to contribute your ideas on how to shape an accreditation program that would promote the development of world-class health and safety programs in Ontario workplaces. Now that the deadline for submissions is past, it's time to tell you what OSSA proposed in its official response.


Very simply, OSSA enthusiastically supports a health and safety accreditation program for Ontario business. As a centerpiece of an organization's corporate social responsibility, we believe accreditation is good for business, and good for the prevention system.


Where our point of view differs from other submissions made by our partners in the prevention system is that we don't support additional monetary incentives for firms that earn accreditation. Why? Because we believe that firms seeking accreditation should do it because they're motivated by wanting to fulfill their corporate social responsibility, and not by seeking financial gain. The WSIB already offers significant financial incentives or cost-saving opportunities; for example, the NEER experience rating program, Merit Adjusted Premium Plan, Workwell program, Safe Communities Incentive Program, and The Safety Groups Program.


The accreditation process OSSA submitted to the WSIB recommends that:

1.	Businesses perform a self-assessment to identify readiness to be accredited. The self-assessment would focus heavily on having senior management commitment and foundational elements in place; e.g.
• policies and procedures • awareness of hazards and controls • hazards reporting • a basic framework for a health and safety system
2.	Once ready, the business would complete a formal application.
3.	A WSIB-approved auditor would complete an audit to confirm that the accreditation criteria had been met. OSSA is recommending that Ontario's 14 designated health and safety associations be selected as the auditors, which builds on their relationships with Ontario business and on their role as advocates and trainers.

Stay tuned: we'll continue to keep you up to date as the WSIB communicates next steps.

Why Do Young Workers' Health and Safety Improve...
...When the CEO asks the right questions?


Why does the mandate for health and safety rest on the shoulders of an organization's senior executive? Because managers at different levels of an organization scan a horizon for opportunities and threats that can range from a few months to a year or two out. The exception is the executive leader, the person at the top, whose time horizon is ten years and more. That's the art of the long view. In the realm of health and safety, the long view has everything to do with focusing resources on preventing injury and illness, not picking up the pieces.


By focusing on the right goal and asking the right questions, presidents and CEOs can promote a business case for health and safety programs in their firms that save lives; for example:

•	What is our risk exposure?
•	To what extent does our success depend on our corporate reputation?
•	What's the cost of quality and how does it correlate with the cost of prevention?
•	What's our reserve for managing a health and safety risk exposure when--that's when--it happens?

In 2006, 10 young Ontario workers, 15 to 24 years of age, lost their lives due to injuries and illnesses. Every one of those deaths was preventable, had the firm's steward for corporate social responsibility been asking the right questions at the right time.


At this moment, thousands of young workers are beginning their summer jobs. Their lives and well-being could hang on a question. There's still time to ask it.

Homeowner and His Roofer Both Fined for Health and Safety Violation
Surprise: homeowners obligated to ensure safe work practices on their property


In a relatively rare citation by the Ministry of Labour, a Scarborough homeowner was found guilty in April of failing, as an employer of a company he had contracted to re-shingle his house, to take reasonable precautions for the protection of the roofing company's roofer, who died when he fell off the roof. It's a tragic story, as well as a communications opportunity for firms to help staff make the connection that health and safety isn't something others do for you. Homeowners may not know it, but they are considered "employers" when they hire contractors, and they are required to take reasonable precautions to make sure workers are protected and safe. The homeowner in this tragic incident was fined

•	$2,000 for failing, as an employer, to take precautions reasonable in the circumstances for the protection of the worker;
•	$2,000 for failing, as a constructor, to appoint a supervisor to supervise the work at the construction site, which was his own roof;
•	$1,000 for failing, as a constructor, to ensure materials at the construction site were stored and moved in a manner that did not endanger a worker.

Renaissance Quality Roofing Ltd. was fined $160,000. The worker fell and died when a plywood platform slid down the side of the roof and landed on him. He was not wearing any fall arrest equipment.


The story serves as a wake-up call for homeowners, who are responsible for hiring companies that have effective health and safety programs. You might consider sharing this story with your staff: sometimes a meaningful and relevant case study that affects employees on the home front can help them make the connection with their health and safety obligations at work.


Here's what homeowners can do to protect themselves and their contractors:

1.	Find out if the company has a health and safety program.
2.	Request the name of the site foreman, and find out if he or she has been trained in health and safety.
3.	Make sure that contractors who require it, have special certifications or licenses in place; e.g. plumber, electrician, etc.
4.	Ask for a copy of the firm's WSIB clearance certificates and other applicable liability insurance.
5.	Find out if the company is a member of a known or recognized association; this contributes to the organizations credibility, and provides you with a recourse should something go wrong.