The City of Edmonton has launched a comprehensive review of safety in the province’s municipal workplaces. The city wants to re-examine and improve upon the QHSE processes and safety culture of its municipal workplaces, eventually translating the positive results to the public sector. With a focus on the three distinct areas of people, processes and technology, the review will examine and evaluate the city’s safety culture from frontline workers up to upper management.
Doug Jones, Edmonton’s deputy city manager of operations wants Edmonton to be a leader in safety, with a focus on “How do we train our people to be safe? How do we train our leaders in the organization at all levels to exhibit the right safety-leadership behaviours? How do we promote all the right things about safety?”
The goal is to promote safety as a priority, training city employees and teaching upper management to role model and exhibit the right safety behaviours. Management will play a critical role in creating and developing their safety culture, which they role model and pass down to middle management and supervisors. This emphasis and focus on safety will eventually permeate throughout Edmonton’s municipal workplaces, directly influencing the number of front line employee injuries.
City employees should be encouraged to think about the role they play in maintaining health and safety, and to discuss steps they can take to improve safety practices. For work to be carried out safely and efficiently, it is important that workers understand their individual roles in creating a safe workplace.
One area that the review will focus on is technology and equipment, which is an essential component of maintaining a proactive safety culture that no organization should ignore. The right safety solution can make safety information more accessible, shareable, and actionable, while also making the process more transparent throughout the organization, from front line workers up to management. With a workforce equipped with the software to access and share safety information, employees are engaged and actively participating in making the workplace safer.
Evaluating and updating their QHSE processes will help drive improvement in health and safety culture, and developing health and safety leadership skills and strategies to make their employees safer, more efficient, and more productive. Increased education and awareness of best safety practices will have a profound and lasting impact on the world of safety.
Edmonton’s commitment to reviewing safety processes speaks to Alberta’s growing focus on improving health and safety at work-sites across the province. Given our focus on the world of safety and compliance, it’s great to see that Edmonton takes their QHSE programs seriously.