Make Safety a Habit
North American Occupational Safety and Health Week (NAOSH) Week is held annually to focus on the importance of workplace health and safety (along with safety in non-work settings) and engage people in events and activities that raise that awareness.
NAOSH Week runs from May 6-12 this year and the theme is “Make Safety a Habit: People, Purpose, Passion”. As Saskatchewan NAOSH Week organizing committee member Patrick Hauser explained, workplace health and safety is all about people, and everyone is affected when there is a workplace tragedy.
“Health and safety systems must keep workers thinking in the moment to detect hazards and allow them to make active decisions to correct these hazards to continually maintain a safe working environment. Workers should not be blindly adhering to complex safety processes,” Hauser said.
“When people are not the focus of the safety program and the complacency and erosion of safety standards set in – often due to poor role modeling by supervisors which can lead workers to cut corners or rush their work and make the ‘unwritten rules’ more important than the written rules, or by having complex safety systems which can take the human brain out of the equation in the moment – this is what leads to many serious workplace incidents.”
Hauser added, “Workplace health and safety processes, plans or initiatives really take off in a positive way when there is passionate leadership from the top of the organization, active and positive supervisor involvement and open communication throughout. This allows workers to have purpose in workplace safety. This is important both at work with employees, but also at home with our children. The earlier we can start getting our youth and young workers involved in understanding their rights, recognizing hazards and risks and asking questions, the more aware and engaged they will be when they enter the workplace.”
There are numerous events taking place in Saskatchewan during NAOSH Week. Hauser said the aim of these events is to generate awareness and, in turn, raise workplace health and safety standards, ultimately leading to a reduction of serious workplace injuries.
The week kicks off on May 6 with Steps for Life – Walking for Families of Workplace Tragedy events in both Regina and Saskatoon. These five-kilometre fundraising walks support Threads of Life, a national registered charity dedicated to helping families of workplace tragedy.
Tickets for the events cost $15 for people ages 14-and-older and you can register online at www. stepsforlife.ca. Luncheons to formally launch NAOSH Week are also being held in Regina (May 7, Queensbury Convention Centre, Ballroom B, 1700 Elphinstone St., 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Saskatoon (May 8, Prairieland Park – Terrace, 503 Ruth Street West, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.). The luncheons are organized by the local chapters of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering together with the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board, the Saskatchewan Safety Council, the provincial government and many other provincial partners.
The featured guest speaker is John Amatt, founder and president of One Step Beyond WorldWide, an innovative educational and motivational company. Amatt was the leader of an Everest expedition that suffered four tragic deaths in two unpredictable incidents before putting six climbers on top of the world. He uses the lessons learned from his own life-and-death adventures to articulate down-to-earth strategies for meeting the challenges of change in corporate and professional life.
For more information on NAOSH Week, visit www.naosh.org.