Virtual Breakfast Forum – Apr 08, 2021

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Today’s Virtual Breakfast Forum was very well attended, with discussions revolving around vaccinations. None of the members on the call had been vaccinated at the time of the meeting, however, a few were scheduled for their first shots imminently.

In some organizations that primarily have salaried workers, members are sharing that for those who wish to get vaccinated, there are no issues with them taking paid time off and can use their sick time to do so. In organizations that have hourly-paid workers, it is a little more challenging. It isn’t easy to coordinate pulling people off their shifts, coordinating replacements, or figuring out how to incent them to go during their personal time.

Members shared that they all have employees who are hesitant to get the vaccination, or adamant that they will not get it for various reasons. One interesting twist that a member found was that some people are reluctant to report that they have been vaccinated because they do not want to return to the office and prefer to work from home. We expect to continue to see varying habits and attitudes emerging from employees as the pandemic continues.

Complacency among younger individuals remains an issue, both at work and during their personal time. In addition to this, there seems to be a very loose definition of “personal bubbles”, extending from your own home to a few others, and including kids who attend school.  These situations appear to contribute greatly to the rising spread of the disease.

The questions remain: once people get vaccinated, what then? Are you not required to wear a mask? What about social distancing? We have not had any messaging from the government on protocol yet, and we will await instructions from Public Health.

George reminded the group that the Inaugural AGM for the Executive Health and Safety Council will be on April 22nd, followed by a general conversation breakfast forum. The AGM portion will be approximately 15-20 minutes and will begin at 8:00am.

On June 3rd, Dr. Joti Samra will be joining us talking about Mental Health, which continues to be a very hot topic for organizations. We hope to see you there.

 

 

 

 

Virtual Breakfast Forum – Mar 25, 2021

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In today’s Virtual Breakfast Forum we welcomed 13 members and guests to discuss current safety cultures. The big questions were:

  • will safety culture be the same for your organization after the pandemic?
  • what practices will you maintain?
  • what will you change?

One member reported that his organization has seen 5 confirmed cases within the last 10 days. It was clear that these cases didn’t come from inside the organization. We speculated that the increase in cases is mostly due to complacency. People become comfortable and tend to forget the protocols, ease up on physical distancing, which is what’s gotten us where we are today. This is consistent to what’s happening all over BC, with current case numbers skyrocketing.

What will likely remain in organizations across the board, for one, will be visible cleaning protocols and maintaining clean looking environments for both staff and guests. Customers will have a higher expectation of cleanliness and will not be ready to let that go. Plexiglass and other barriers in facilities will likely remain. Having employees working from home seems to have been widely adopted by many organizations, and hot desks are proving to work well for many adopting the hybrid approach, resulting in a financial savings.  There will be a higher demand for hybrid meetings, where in person meetings are offered. The expectation will be that people should have the right to choose how they are meeting with others, and have both options available to them. Work / personal related travel seems to be the number one concern for risk.

While we all took a while to become accustomed to new safety protocols, so it will take a while for us all to get comfortable with reverting back to a more normal life. It was agreed that physical distancing might not go away completely, because we’ve all grown more conscious about proximity. Most members agreed that masks will be the first thing to go, but it will take some time before everyone is comfortable not wearing masks.

A member shared an interesting statistic: that across Canada there have been only 121 cases of the flu reported, vs 35000 reported for the same period a year ago.

One fact remains, that leadership sets the culture in organizations, so it all starts from the top. As leaders we all need to keep up the high vigilance. Don’t relax or become complacent with your teams.

George shared some updates with the group:

  • Dr Joti Samra will be speaking with us in June on Mental health at the CEO/leadership level.
  • We will be looking for nominations for the Ben Hume Award – a leadership award presented to a member of EHSCBC, supported by MSABC, to recognize someone within the group that has done a great job over the last year.

Please nominate someone from our group. It’s a good way of expressing thanks and appreciation of each other.

  • AGM – April 22nd, which will include the review of finances and ratifying the new board, will be incorporated into a Breakfast Forum.
  • A short members survey will be sent out, to ask members what you are looking for from membership with the ESHCBC and what could we be doing differently. Please complete this to assist us with programming.

 

 

 

Virtual Breakfast Forum – Mar 11, 2021

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At this morning’s Virtual Breakfast Forum, members and guests learned the finer details of the October 17, 2017 catastrophe at the ice rink in Fernie BC. It’s a very compelling story – not just looking at the failure of the technical equipment (what failed and how) but looking back in time. What were the decisions made leading up to the tragedy? The equipment failed, but that’s not the whole story to tell.

Jeff Coleman, Technical Safety BC’s Director responsible for Incident Investigation joined us to share this tragic story, where 3 dedicated workers lives were lost to an ammonia release. In this small town in the South East corner of BC, nestled in a valley of mountains, the arena was in close proximity to a number of houses, a nursing home, and a hospital. The organization and the community were severely affected in the days after the incident – residents were evacuated from their homes for a week.

Using the Menti platform, Jeff polled the group during the presentations and some interesting answers were offered.  You can find the questions and responses in his presentation deck which is at this link.

Jeff also shared a pie graph regarding the reasons for technical equipment failures. The top 3 reported were:

  • Aging equipment,
  • Procedures not being followed,
  • Ineffective service

These three issues are issues about management, and in fact are quite manageable – how do we achieve different outcomes? Quite often there is the gap between the person on the floor and management. We need to ensure we’re empowering our teams.

There is a culture of running equipment right up to or past failure, and it’s a culture Technical Safety is working to change. Available on Technical Safety BC’s website, there are a series of valuable resources, including past safety stories and reports. Jeff, Ab or Kate welcome members or guests to reach out with any questions.

 

 

 

Virtual Breakfast Forum – Feb 25, 2021

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Thanks to everyone that joined us on this week’s Virtual Breakfast Forum. We enjoyed hearing from our members about a few questions that George asked at the start of the call.

As a member – are you getting what you want / what you need?

Unanimously, the group reported that every single meeting has something that they can take back to their organizations and either implement or bear in mind for the future. Members are finding a lot of value from these meetings.  It was agreed that while there are many benefits from meeting in person, there is tremendous value in having virtual meetings such as not having additional costs or travel time spent.

Any forums members would like to see in the future?

There was some discussion about the Mental Health of leaders and employees, continuously being a topic that affects everyone. It is important that you take care of yourselves or you won’t be any good to anyone else.  We’re not in competition when it comes to safety. We are all here to share and learn from each other.

As members, if you find you have something specific that you want to discuss in depth at a general discussion Breakfast Forum, email George in advance to suggest that it be the main topic of discussion.

Any stories to share?

One member reported that their organization is experiencing issues around employees’ willingness to travel for real business needs. Some members reported having the same issues, and their solution was to find a local reliable partner to do the work on-site and have the visit be done virtually in partnership with them. Some members are reporting that this type of partnership even increases their business!

Looking ahead to the next few months, George shared some updates on the plans for future events:

Technical Safety BC will be presenting at the Virtual Breakfast Forum on March 11th, discussing the “Fernie Incident”. Members will learn what happened, what was done about it, and what was learned from it.

The EHSCBC’s AGM will be on April 22nd and will be incorporated into a Virtual Breakfast Forum. The AGM will be approximately 20 mins which will allow us to still have a chance to talk about issues/topics.

Threads of Life (an organization that works with individuals and the families of people that have had traumatic incidents from workplace accidents) is holding a virtual event on May 1 & 2nd.  They are looking for corporate sponsorship and attendance.  More information will be shared in the next e-blast.

George made a call out for new board and committee members, as the EHSCBC is looking for “new blood”. If any member is interested in getting more involved, please let George know. As always, the organization is membership-driven, and more members are needed. We require your participation to keep membership growing – it’s as simple as sending a virtual introduction to George and Ben and they’ll take it from there.

We hope to see you at our next session on March 11th!

 

Cyber Risk Today – Feb 11, 2021

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A huge thank you to Rob McFarlane and Rob Selnes from CapriCMW for a very informative and thought-provoking presentation on identifying and mitigating cyber risks. CapriCMW is a risk management and insurance firm, with 13 offices in BC and across the country.

Business productivity is increasingly reliant on technology. With the onset of COVID-19 and organizations’ IT being stretched farther than ever before, this presents accelerated risks for cyber security, due to employees using their own devices, working from home etc. Cyber criminals are increasingly targeting your employees due to less security, and using the employee as the conduit into the organization’s IT system.

Rob S. shared some very interesting statistics in the presentation:

  • Canada has 3rd highest number of cyber breaches in the world
  • Cyber breaches cost Canadian organizations over $3 billion in 2018
  • On average it took 181 days for a breach to be identified and 69 days to contain it
  • Cybercrime has now surpassed illegal drug trafficking as a criminal moneymaker
  • Ransomware attack costs for Canadian businesses are now averaging $1 million per incident
  • In Canada, the two most common cyber-attacks are ransomware attacks and e-theft by imposters

70% of all cyber incidents are caused by employee error, curiosity and /or insufficient IT security training, such as: Ransomware attacks, e-theft of funds by imposters (by email or calling companies), targeted scams, hacking attacks. Letting a cybercriminal into an organization’s system can be as simple as one employee opening a website or clicking on an email.

What can you do to prevent this from happening in your organization? Identify and prioritize your cyber risks. Develop an internal culture of cyber risk awareness. Security awareness training for employees. Test your systems. Invest in strong IT. Have an incident response plan, a business continuity plan and obtain cyber insurance.

 

 

 

Virtual Breakfast Forum – Jan 28, 2021

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Thanks to everyone who attended our 2nd Virtual Breakfast Forum of 2021. We had a very interesting discussion around vaccinations for COVID-19. Questions that were posed to the group for consideration in their own organizations were:

  • Will you be encouraging your staff to get vaccinated?
  • Will you provide time off to your staff for vaccinations?
  • How will the timelines to vaccinate employees based on age/health affect your business?

Members were polled as to which regions they do work in, and would be interested in learning about province or state vaccination schedules. Members were interested in Western Canada east to Ontario, and Washington State, Wisconsin and Oregon. We will share information as we receive it.

The vaccination schedule in BC will depend on your age. The younger your team is, the later they will be vaccinated. Most of the members on the call indicated that their teams would fall on the later side of the provincial vaccination schedule.

It is still unclear as to what employers’ rights will be or how much influence you can put on your staff to actually vaccinate. This will be a very real issue moving forward, but it is still a bit too early to get concise information. It was discussed that later in the spring/summer we will bring in a labour lawyer to shed some light on this difficult moral and legal question.

Members are still concerned with complacency, whether it be within their own organizations or on job sites. It remains a concern about the high percentage of strong willed, younger generation that don’t see the risks in the same way. One member shared that at his office, there is a QR code that can be scanned on your phone, which presents a COVID-19 health survey, one for their employees who regularly enter the facility, and another for visitors.  The information is held securely and confidentially, accessible only by the HR manager. This is a good way to help with contact tracing.

We are looking forward to our speaker from Capri CMW, Rob Selnes, as the presenter on our next VBF, Thursday February 11th, discussing Cyber Security. Rob will shed some light on what the current and predominant risks are for small and mid-sized businesses, what to do to safeguard against those risks, as well as resources that are easily accessible. We are encouraging all members to invite other staff members that might benefit from this discussion, HR or IT managers, and to invite any potential new members who might see value in listening in.

 

 

Virtual Breakfast Forum – Jan 14, 2021

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Happy New Year! For our first Virtual Breakfast Forum of 2021, we enjoyed re-engaging with our members, welcoming a few new members and inviting some potential members to join our call.

Members were encouraged to share regional updates, with many reporting that things are status quo with regard to COVID-19,  and some indicating that they were very pleased with fiscal results under the circumstances. Being in BC, we seem to be in a better position than some other provinces in terms of operations continuing. However, it was noted that H&S protocols regarding COVID-19 are still very much in place.

A very interesting discussion was had around certification: is the value in the certification itself, or in the process of being certified? How is it possible to certify people for the right kind of behaviour and / or decision making? Theory may not be as important as experience.  Insurance providers do not specifically consider certifications, however it was noted that certifications do help to indicate that the organization prioritizes Health and Safety, therefore resulting in more favourable insurance terms & premiums.

We look forward to regrouping and continuing the conversation at our next Virtual Breakfast Forum, Thursday, January 28th.

 

Virtual Round Table 2020 a HUGE success

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The Executive Health and Safety Council had a phenomenal first year, capped off by the annual 2020 Round Table.  This year over 95 registrants from across the province attended “virtually”, to share and learn from each others’ experiences.  By all accounts this event was very well received, both by members and their guests.

The 2020 Panel Discussion was an excellent example of how leaders from different regions and industries faced similar health and safety issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The panel members shared their experiences and thoughts on being leaders during these trying times.  As a group, the panel members showed what it means to be an active participant of the Executive Health and Safety Council.  A special shout-out and thank you to panel members Brian Wall, Dann Konkin and Don Bayda.

This years’ Table Discussions were opportunities for members and guests to dig deeper into issues that have always been of concern to leaders.  Recover at Work programs, Onboarding of New and Young Workers and The Dangers of Rushing are all issues that have been explored by smaller groups but have in impact to every business.  There were many rich and thoughtful discussions that took place in all of the groups and many attendees felt they could have talked longer.  Thank you to table hosts Jaime, Nick and Perry.

The keynote address by Mark Collins was inspiring.  The story of how BC Ferries used a tragedy to create change in safety culture really struck home for many, as was reinforced by the comments people left as they exited the room.  A similarity of last years speech by Greg Stewart was when Mark said “and my cell phone was ringing… then my home phone, which never rings, began to ring…”  This was the call that no one wants to receive, but as leaders it is a call that we all must take.

The “Virtual Networking” was an excellent way for people to relax a bit, and hear from our hosts Ria Kitsch and Sandra Oldfield not only about the wine that was being tasted, but also about some of the programs that Kitsch Wineries have implemented.  It was important to hear from another industry leader that COVID was also having an effect on their operations, and how they were managing.  It was also wonderful to learn how Kitsch ties in personal goals to their performance reviews, and how this has affected staff morale.

A final thank-you to our sponsors, without their help this event would not have been as successful.

We are looking forward to what 2021 will bring us and to working closely with all of you in the new year.

Important information shared at Slips, Trips and Falls presentation

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Big thanks to Richard Ayuen, VP & General Manager SureWerx, who lead a very informative session today on “Slips, Trips and Falls” (STF). SureWerx is a valued sponsor and supporter of the EHSCBC. SureWerx was founded in 1957, and until 2009 was primarily a tool and equipment business.  In 2009 SureWerx noticed a greater demand for safety products, as required by a greater awareness and increased cost to businesses of these types of injuries. SureWerx has expanded their product offerings to include Safety Products.

Richard’s presentation included SureWerx’s 4 pillars to minimize any STF:

  1. Awareness & Education: outline the impact of STFs to the employees & the organization and educate them on how to work safely. It’s important to help encourage a safety culture where employees should feel empowered to take ownership and action to make a difference by cleaning spills immediately, identify hazards or high risk areas and to help keep all pathways and walkways clear.
  2. Working environment: Permanent identification of all hazards and the ability to temporarily shut down or identify hazards
  3. PPE Equipment: educate employees to the right equipment and proper fit for size and weight
  4. Ownership & Leadership: create the environment, lead by example, walk the talk by putting on PPE and safety equipment when on a job site. It is law now under sec 4.29 of the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations.

Richard shared some very interesting country-wide statistics:

  • Annually, more than 42000 workers are injured due to falls
  • 66% are due to same level falls and 34% due from heights (source: Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety)
  • Falls are 4th leading cause of industrial deaths. In BC close to 1000 in manufacturing suffer fall injuries, equating to 49,000 lost workdays and $22M in claim costs.

Bottom line impact is the loss of personnel resulting in loss of productivity, loss of key knowledge as well as the additional stress on other employees.

STPs are Preventable!

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you do your own organizational safety audits:

  • Keep walking surfaces clean & clutter free
  • Stairways must have handrails, use reflective tape to mark the top and bottom, remove all unsecured or worn rugs/carpets
  • Look for exposed cables and wires – run cables under carpets or behind walls, avoid running them across walkways
  • Ensuring employees are wearing proper footwear for indoor and out
  • Good lighting in stairways and outdoors
  • Labelling hazards to remind people to be safe. (see above)

WorkSafe BC will soon be rolling out a Slips Trips and Falls prevention awareness, incorporating educational tools, labels and stickers at no cost so you can use them with messages for your facilities.

Virtual Breakfast Forum – COVID, Smoke and Flu Season

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Thank you to everyone that participated in today’s Virtual Breakfast Forum. We were pleased to welcome a few newer members, as well as many regular participants and some members that haven’t had the opportunity to join us yet.

We have been working hard at getting our Virtual Round Table up and running, and are thrilled to announce that we will be launching registration today. Due to COVID-19, this year’s Round Table will be held virtually, over Zoom, and will take place over two days: November 10th & 12th. Members will receive an email with a link to our registration page, including the agenda, discussion topics and registration details. Tickets for the event are included in membership fees, and the number of tickets allocated to each organization is based on the fee paid. Please contact ehscbcreg@gmail.com with any registration questions. Non – members can register for the Virtual Round Table HERE.

Due to the recent forest fires, we are seeing many respiratory issues. Some members reported that their organizations were severely affected due to proximity to either the fires in Oregon or the recent fire in New Westminster. Smoke inhalation issues are also respiratory concerns, similar to those experienced with COVID-19.

Discussions revolved around the continuing threat of employees having had contact with family or friends testing positive for COVID-19. With the return to school, it is much more concerning now that our bubbles are rapidly expanding. It’s not only our kids that are at risk, it is also teachers who come into contact with so many students. With flu season approaching, it is important to review your COVID-19 policies and plans in case of a 2nd outbreak.

One way to provide support to your employees is to offer a flu shot clinic at your organization or to reimburse out of pocket expenses for these shots. Members reported that this initiative has been very popular, as staff see this as leaders doing their part to keep their teams healthy and safe. Another suggestion was to offer a wellness fair, checking blood pressure, blood sugar testing, and mental health support.