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Hey Canada, it’s time to make your move! During Canada’s Healthy Workplace Month® from October 4 to 31, you’re encouraged to incorporate upbeat elements into your workplace, relationships with family and friends, life and work harmony, and your community.
CCOHS is presenting two free webinars in celebration of Healthy Workplace Month. Attend individually or as a group in your meeting or board room. All you need is a computer with Internet access. Space is limited, so pre-registration is required.
Implementing Healthy Eating Programs in the Workplace
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
1:00 – 2:00 PM EDT
Join Heather Harvey of the Ontario Public Health Association as she discusses healthy eating in the workplace and how to successfully implement healthy eating programs. It will draw on experiences learned through the Eat Smart!® Workplace Program, a healthy eating award program for Ontario workplaces. Even if your workplace is outside of Ontario, you will find value in the lessons learned and strategies discussed for starting and maintaining interest in your own healthy eating program.
Make the Move: Staying Physically Active at Work
Thursday, October 14, 2010
1:00 – 2:00 PM EDT
Get inspired to get moving, with advice from Angela Torry from the Alberta Centre for Active Living and Lindsay Wright from Be Fit For Life. They’ll outline steps and activities that your workplace can lead, promote and support to help your employees become more physically active during work hours and work breaks. Be ready to think outside the box when it comes to getting your workers moving! You’ll come away motivated and armed with fresh ideas to try out at your workplace. And if you’re a worker, you’ll take away many practical tips, ideas and demonstrations on how you can get and stay active at work – even if you are sitting at a desk all day.
For even more ideas on activities that you can do on your own or in groups, visit the Healthy Workplace Month website. While you’re there, why not consider taking the challenge? Register your organization and keep track of the activities completed by you and your colleagues. Your team could win!
Register for the webinars:
Implementing Healthy Eating Programs in the Workplace
Make the Move: Staying Physically Active at Work
Blog
The worker standing on a production line, the nurse working in a clinic and the student landscaping, all work in vastly different fields – and all share something in common: hazards.
In Canada, employers are responsible for assessing the health and safety risks of a job and for putting measures in place to ensure the safety of their workers.
Job safety analysis (JSA) is an important part of that process. It focuses on the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools, and the work environment, and tries to identify hazards before they occur.
The JSA process starts with selecting the job to be analyzed. There are several questions that need to be considered when selecting the job, such as:
- Where do accidents occur most frequently?
- Are the consequences of an accident, hazardous condition or exposure to a harmful substance potentially severe?
- Is this a newly created job?
- Has a job recently been modified?
- What are the non-routine or infrequently performed jobs?
After the specific job has been selected, a JSA is conducted following these three steps:
1. Break it down
Break the job into steps or tasks noting what is done for each, rather than how it is done. Most tasks can be summarized in less than 10 steps. These steps should be kept in their correct sequence as any step out of order may miss serious potential hazards or introduce hazards that do not actually exist.
2. Identify hazards
Carefully analyze each task of the job and list the potential health and safety hazards for each based on your observations of the job, knowledge of accident and injury causes, and work experience. Seek the input of the workers who have experience in that job.
3. Determine preventive measures
The final stage in a JSA is to determine practical ways to prevent or control the hazards that have been identified:
- Eliminate or contain the hazard by choosing a different process, modifying an existing process, improving the environment or changing the hazardous substance or tools being used. If the hazard cannot be eliminated, contain the hazard and avoid contact by using enclosures, machine guards, worker booths, or similar devices.
- Modify hazardous work procedures. Change the sequence of steps or add additional steps to the job process.
- Reduce exposure. These measures are the least effective and should only be used if no other solutions are possible. For example, you can minimize some exposure by providing personal protective equipment. To reduce the severity of an accident, provide emergency facilities such as eyewash stations.
Workers performing the job as well as the supervisor and a representative from the health and safety committee should be involved in conducting the JSA. The more skill and years experience applied to identifying hazards in a job, the safer the job and the employees will be.
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Occupational health and safety (OH&S) programs – every workplace should have one, and in most Canadian jurisdictions, they are required. An effective health and safety program provides a clear set of guidelines for activities that, if followed diligently, can reduce injuries and illnesses in the workplace.
The key to the success of the program is the manner in which it is implemented and maintained. To help you get started, CCOHS has developed a 134-page manual, Implementing a Health and Safety (OH&S) Program. This publication provides essential information, sample policies, procedures, checklists and guidance on the development, maintenance, and continual improvement of an OH&S program. You can use and customise the materials provided to create a program specific for your workplace.
Anyone who is committed to creating a healthy and safe workplace can benefit from Implementing a Health and Safety (OH&S) Program, including employers, owners, managers – and the organization as a whole. It can help organizations of any size to create an OH&S program with emphasis on effectiveness, compliance, diligence, and documentation, as well as to use their hazard assessments to prevent or reduce hazards and risks to employees. Lastly it will assist you in monitoring and improving your OH&S program. It is important to note that the information in this publication is based on best practice principles and techniques and is intended to provide guidance, rather than prescribe specific requirements. It is not intended as a legal interpretation of any federal, provincial or territorial legislation.
Ultimately an effective OH&S program can reduce workplace fatalities, illnesses and injuries and foster a workplace culture of prevention and awareness towards health and safety issues.
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Most businesses are ill-prepared for most disasters, particularly earthquakes. The goal of earthquake planning for business is to promote safety, minimize impact and assist in speedy recovery. Planning should be aimed at ensuring that employees, facilities and business activities are prepared to meet emergency conditions.
If you are a business owner, your employees are your most important asset and must be protected. Similarly, if you own a building, the well-being of businesses that reside within are tied to your economic interests. If these are disrupted in some way, that income stream may be interrupted or lost.
The objectives of earthquake planning are:
- To minimize potential for injury/death of employees and customers
- To evaluate and reduce hazards
- To reduce expenses caused by loss and liability
- To put tested procedures and equipment in place
- To plan for business resumption following an earthquake
If you subscribe to the SOS Medical Management Program call now to schedule your no charge 1 hour Earthquake Awareness Seminar. Don’t forget to check out our new survival kits at www.sostech.ca– just click on Product Catalog and click again on Earthquake and Emergency Preparedness.
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Geologists have mapped the recent earthquakes in California and Mexico and have found a pattern called the Mogi doughnut. The concept of mapping, originally from Japan, shows that earthquakes occur in a circular pattern over decades – building up to one very large quake in the middle of the doughnut hole. Geologists believe that the recent quakes in California and Mexico, combined with seismic events including the 1989 and 1994 quakes, could be the precursors to a far larger rupture. Experts have been predicting for years that it will happen – we just don’t know when.
The idea behind the doughnut is simple. Earthquakes in California are caused by tectonic movements in which the Pacific plate slides northwest relative to the North American plate. As the plates move, stress builds along both sides of the Earth’s crust. The stress casuses smaller faults at first, as they need less pressure to break and thus produces small earthquakes. As the stress moves to bigger faults that need more pressure to erupt, larger and larger earthquakes will happen until the “Big One” happens.
Whether the doughnut concept is true or not, the reality is that westcoast is shaking more than in recent years.
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A stroke can happen to anyone, from newborns, to children to adults. It is NOT an elderly person’s disease. Most people are unaware that the faster they have treatment, the better chances for full recovery.
Stroke is the #1 cause of disability, the #2 cause of dementia, and the #3 cause of death in Canada.
The Heart & Stroke Foundation of B.C. and Yukon has launched a campaign to familiarize people with the five signs of stroke:
- rapid onset of weakness
- speech impairment
- vision problems
- sudden severe headache
- sudden dizziness
- fewer than 54 percent of British Columbians can name two of the five stroke warning signs
- About 1,500 people (one third of stroke victims) in B.C. die within a year of their stroke
- Dealing with the annual costs of strokes in B.C. costs roughly $330 million
