by Lisa Thibault

In the mix of “things to take care of before year-end,” this is also the time to ensure we have met the annual health and safety training requirements for our Joint Health and Safety Committee or Worker Representative. While it’s important for employers to ensure that their legislative requirements are met, the year-end time crunch makes it easy to lose sight of why health and safety training is important year-round. There are risks in every workplace. No matter what you manufacture, the size of your company, number of employees and worksites, every workplace has its own unique hazards and risks.

“Of all the things a leader should fear, complacency heads the list.” ~ John C. Maxwell

Even if you are meeting the regulatory standards for health and safety in your workplace, it’s important to avoid allowing complacency to set in. Health and safety is an ongoing process, fueled by continuous education, training, and communication. An effective health and safety training program can play a key role in reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. A workplace injury that results in time loss can have an enormous impact on your operations—including the loss of those workers’ skills and knowledge, and time lost to investigation and reactionary risk mitigation. Regular and ongoing health and safety training helps employers build strong relationships with employees. Workers provided with adequate time to learn the best health and safety practices for the tasks they perform every day are more likely to feel valued, tend to be more satisfied with their employer, and may be less likely to leave. In an era of critical worker shortages across almost all sectors of our economy, it is essential to build a safe and healthy workplace culture that attracts and retains talent. Creating a culture of safety where training happens year-round helps orient a company—both employees and management—towards the North Star of a safe and healthy workplace. If you are looking for health and safety training, visit safetyalliancebc.ca/training for more information on a variety of options, including online, eLearning, and in-person classroom training. Introductory eLearning courses are available for as little as $10 and accessible anytime and anywhere.