The 3 Questions to Ask to Keep Your Seasonal Staff Safe
As American Thanksgiving rapidly approaches, it traditionally marks the beginning of the Holiday Season, taking the retail sector and service industry into their busiest time of the year and Canada is no exception. In order to meet consumer demands extra manpower may be necessary whether it is through seasonal hires, increased shifts/hours of existing employees and/or switching staff into different areas or positions. As a result, the risk of workplace accident and injury increases. Seasonal Employment Seasonal employment may involve groups of workers hired at the same time, a steady stream of new recruits or a just a couple of individuals required to complement existing staff. It may require staffing a completely seasonal business where there is no existing or experienced staff. Seasonal workers are often young and/or inexperienced, and for many it is their first job and exposure to a workplace. Others see seasonal work as an opportunity to […]
What is Partnership in Injury Reduction (PIR) and How to Get Involved.
It’s Not Too Late! Register in WCB Alberta’s Partnerships in Injury Reduction (PIR) by December 31, 2017 and still be eligible for PIR rebated for 2017 and 2018 The annual Experience Rating statements will soon be released, so now is a good time for employers to look at ways to maintain or improve their WCB premium rate. In Alberta, your claims experience from the past three years is used to establish your premium rate for the coming year – in other words, your WCB claims from 2014, 2015 and 2016 will be used to determine your premium rate for 2018.
Seasonal Worker Safety: An Employer Priority
Summer is here! The season of sunshine, warm weather, vacations, festivals, exhibitions, concerts, Stampede, landscaping, outdoor activities and, of course, construction. It’s also one of the busiest times of the year for seasonal hires – whether it is extra staff to handle the peak traffic at resorts, camp counsellors, summer students to cover vacations, special event workers or extra manpower to complete construction and other projects while the weather permits. With the hire of new employees, whether permanent, temporary or seasonal, workplace safety should be an integral part of the on-boarding process and ongoing operations. Let’s explore more about Seasonal Worker Safety: Greater Risks for New Hires A recent study by the Institution for Work & Health (IWH), based on research over a 10 year period, indicates that there is a higher risk of work injury among workers new to a job and virtually every seasonal worker is ‘new’. The […]
Drug and Alcohol Policies in the Workplace
If the government holds true to it’s word, despite the controversy, marijuana could be legal in Canada by National Marijuana Day, April 20th. Whether you agree or not, the reality of the legalization of cannabis can not be ignored nor can the impact this may have on the workplace. Does the legalization of marijuana change the concept of a ‘smoke break’ or a ‘two martini lunch’? What about company social functions? Workplace alcohol and drug testing? An employer’s obligation for tolerance and what recourse do they have? It is well documented that the risk of accident and injury increases dramatically when associated with the use of, and/or intoxication from alcohol or drugs, either prescribed, legal or otherwise. The health and safety of everyone in the workplace can be affected by a single person’s behaviour while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Beyond the obvious medical impact that an accident […]
St. John’s Ambulance Mental Health First Aid Course
Continuing the Conversation In case you missed it, Bell Let’s Talk day 2017 set new all-time records with unprecedented social media participation in Canada’s national conversation about mental health. An impressive 131,705,010 Bell Let’s Talk interactions through calls, texts, tweets, posts and views raised more than $6.5 million in funding for Canadian mental health programs, research and initiatives. Leading up to Bell Let’s Talk day, Bell announced support for a number of new projects including funding for St. John Ambulance to develop and incorporate a mental health module in their standard and emergency first aid courses. As a result, St. John Ambulance now offers a Mental Health First Aid course. The course was developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada to teach participants how to assist people showing signs of mental health problems or people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. The course does not train individuals to […]