Training programs deliver safety messages to horticultural businesses
BY SUSAN HIRSHORN
Landscapers are rarely daunted by the challenges they encounter on a work site, but when managers from Hank Deenen Landscaping learned that used hypodermic needles were spotted at a commercial site where its crew was raking leaves, “we immediately took steps to safeguard our people,” recalls Carlie Deenen, who manages health and safety at the Scarborough, Ont. firm.
Used needles can carry viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C, and landscapers’ protective gloves and work boots aren’t always enough to prevent a stray needle from penetrating the skin. “First, we warned our crew not to pick up any leaves by hand and also, not to jump on the leaves to pack them down,” she explains. “Then, we issued everyone two rakes to pack down the leaves, but if for some reason a worker only had one rake, we told him not to bother packing the leaves at all, to just leave them.” Next, the firm notified the owner of the property and asked him to step up security measures. “All of this was the result of workers telling us they saw needles on the site,” Deenen emphasizes. “They know they are responsible for keeping their eyes open for hazards and for reporting them to me.”
Deenen’s firm is committed to creating a culture where everyone, regardless of job or title, assumes responsibility for workplace safety. Their efforts have resulted in zero lost time and zero injury claims for two years in a row. She attributes this accomplishment to a business philosophy that emphasizes good human resource management and to a focus on safety, driven by membership in provincial trade association Landscape Ontario (LO).
Safety pays
Several years ago, LO partnered with the Workplace Safety Insurance Board of Ontario (WSIB) to bring landscapers together in a project called the Safe Communities Incentive Program (SCIP). According to Terry Murphy, LO manager, human resources development, the initiative was part of LO’s overall strategy to professionalize the industry and to lower WSIB group premium rates. “Eight years ago, the premium rate for landscapers and other firms in WSIB’s 190 category was over $9 per $100 of payroll. Today, thanks to better business practices regarding health and safety, it’s about half of that,” he says.
Simply put, SCIP is an introduction on how to manage safety in your company, Murphy adds. “It’s about implementing a process in the company from start to finish so that safe thinking and behaviour becomes the norm.”
When Deenen joined SCIP she learned how to synchronize her company’s policies with health and safety regulations. “One of the first things we did was adjust our organizational roles and responsibilities, breaking them down in a short, easy-to-read way, so managers, supervisors and employees know what is expected of them,” she says.
She also learned how to recognize, assess and control workplace hazards as well as how to implement a return-to-work program. “We’re not a huge firm. We have 35 full-time employees, so it’s important to get someone back to work as quickly and safely as possible if an injury occurs,” notes Deenen.
After SCIP, Deenen joined another LO-sponsored program, called Safety Groups. This program promotes workplace health and safety through mentoring, pooling of resources and sharing of best practices between member firms, their sponsors and the WSIB. With both programs, members can receive WSIB premium rebates, “but in the case of Safety Groups, the rebate is based on the safety achievements of the group.
It’s a real team effort,” she says. For her, “the best thing about these programs, apart from the rebates, is being with other landscapers and having the opportunity to sit down with them and deal with issues that are geared to our industry. Landscaping is very unique. Essentially, we’re selling service, which is labour. So we really need to invest in our most important asset – our workers.”
More training needed
With today’s labour shortages, safety has become part of labour market development; the idea being that safe and healthy workplaces attract more employees than workplaces which expose people to a high risk of injury and/or illness. Moreover, pressures on Canada’s health care system have shifted the onus to prevention. To paraphrase an old saying: an ounce of prevention costs far less than a pound of cure.
As part of overall efforts to promote safety, there seems to be an increased awareness that the horticultural trades require more attention than they have received in the past. For example, recent regulatory changes in Ontario and British Columbia mean that growers are no longer exempt from implementing provincial occupational health and safety rules. As of next year, growers in Prince Edward Island will have to abide by OHS regulations too.
One might think that today’s crop of formally-educated growers would already be well versed in safety, but according to a 2006 report prepared for the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association this is not necessarily the case. The investigator looked at scores of agricultural and horticultural education programs to learn which gaps, if any, existed in health and safety training. It concluded that:
• The bulk of health and safety training was provided by colleges rather than universities.
• Of the college programs that provide health and safety training, only 30 per cent provide it solely through dedicated courses.
• The topics most commonly covered in health and safety training included maintenance and proper handling, first aid, CPR and emergency response management, and it is not known whether there was enough training in these areas to meet the needs of industry.
• Learning the legislative and regulatory responsibilities of employers and employees is less commonly covered. These topics are, in essence, management skills for health and safety.
To help fill the safety training gap, there has been a strengthening of relationships between workers compensation boards and industry associations. In Ontario, the WSIB-funded Farm Safety Association ran courses across the province this winter to help growers comply with the new OHS regulations, says Ted Whitworth, the association’s director of prevention services.
In British Columbia, an industry training organization called HortEducation BC is working with WorkSafe BC (the province’s workers compensation board) on a new approach for delivering safety training to British Columbia’s horticultural trades.
Unlike older approaches, which tend to make one model fit a variety of business sectors, the BC project covers three sectors: retail garden centre, landscape and nursery. “We formed a technical advisory committee comprised of industry representatives to study the main claim-cost drivers and identify the most important safety issues within each sector,” says Andrew Klukas, a Vancouver-based consultant who is working on the project.
Getting the message across
So far, the efforts in B.C. have produced an updated health and safety guide for retail garden centres as well as printed safety modules for landscapers and nurseries which can be delivered on site by lead hands and forepersons. The committee is also investigating other, innovative ways of getting the safety message across to workers, such as videos and interactive simulations. “I’m concerned that traditional methods of teaching safety won’t work with today’s workers,” notes committee member Richard Desmarteau, of Fairfield Tree Nurseries, Chilliwack, B.C. “There are so many things grabbing their attention, you have to deliver the message in a way they find entertaining in order to hold their interest.”
Recalling Deenen’s approach to communicating safety, she emphasizes the importance of repetition. “In addition to holding monthly safety training sessions for workers (sometimes in the form of a company barbecue) we raise safety topics in our weekly tailgate meetings. On a daily basis, we make sure people are wearing the correct protective gear, such as goggles, ear protection and shield-toe work boots. And we do random work-site safety inspections.”
Most employees want to work safely, she adds, “but the biggest challenge is eliminating the misconception that I’m not the boss so it’s not up to me. So we post safety roles and responsibilities. We stuff them into pay envelopes. If I find out someone didn’t report a hazard to me I ask them why, because safety is everyone’s responsibility. That’s our main message. It’s not just for those of us in the office or for the WSIB.” LT
Susan Hirshorn is a Montreal-based freelance writer for business, professional and consumer audiences.