Creating Better Supervisors

This month we are going to put the focus on your supervisors. Are they all they could be and you need them to be.

I remember the first time I was made a supervisor. It was for Blockbuster Video almost 30 years ago. Yes, I was the guy collecting your late fees. Looking back on that experience I was quite simply a terrible supervisor. I had no idea how to treat the people working for me and there was simply no one to help me learn these skills.

Small Business Services

We are finding many of the small construction businesses we deal with are having trouble organizing working at heights training for their employees.  One of the main issues facing them is they do not have enough employees to schedule a training session for just their company.   These companies generally have less than six employees and none of the large safety companies want to schedule a session at the company's facilities for that few trainees.

Ladder Safety

Do you have workers who are required to use ladders on the job?   If so do you have annual ladder safety training?   You may ask why this is important as it is only a ladder and everyone knows how to use a ladder.   This recent court case illustrates why ladder safety is required.

 

Working at Heights Charges and Fines

Despite the province introducing new Working at Heights standards and training requirements last April, we continue to see workers being injured and companies and owners being fined.   Here are a few:

1) A roofing company's owner was fined $14 000 for failing to ensure his workers wore fall protection equipment.   Just two days earlier the MoL had fined the company $4 000 for a similar offense.

Ladder Inspection

Do you use ladders in your daily or weekly work?   Do your require your employees to inspect their ladders every day before they use them?   When was the last time you checked to see if your employees were actually inspecting their ladders?  Do you have a ladder  inspection checklist?  The real question is why aren't you doing these things?

 

Young Workers Blitz by MoL

Between May 1st and August 31st of 2015 the Ministry of Labour conducted a workplace blitz targeting young and new workers.   These are workers between the ages of 14 and 24 and workers who had been working at a new job for less than 6 months.  In the first month on the job workers are three times more likely to suffer an injury.   During the blitz, the MoL visited 2700 workplaces.   11,470 orders were issued including over 200 stop work orders.

The top three issues identified during the visits are:

Pages