Ontario Construction News staff writer
The League of Champions (LOC) has launched the Campaign for Safety Culture.
The multi-year campaign, supported by the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, will promote the benefits of a strong safety culture, highlight best practices, and promote tools to understand and improve organizations’ safety culture.
Safety culture, defined as the behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes towards safety and its value within a particular organization, is critical to health and safety outcomes. Health and safety professionals often cite culture as the best way administration can support and implement a successful safety program.
“No matter the job, every employer has a responsibility to look after the safety and wellbeing of their workers,” said Monte McNaughton, minister of labour, training and skills development.
“I applaud the League of Champions for starting this important initiative. By working together, businesses, labour and government can ensure every worker in our province comes home safely to their families after a hard day’s work.”
The Campaign for Safety Culture will feature multiple webinars, podcasts, a public awareness campaign and the launch of an auditing tool. The campaign’s goal will be to include all the tools needed to build a strong safety culture, including an audit, workplace inspection and direct safety culture measures.
“Leaders need to lead. When workers are empowered to improve their workplace safety, the culture is more dynamic and focused on safety. The leaders set the standard,” said Craig Lesurf, chair of the League of Champions Board of Directors. “Today, we start a conversation about safety culture and how it is vital in our success.”
The campaign began with a webinar titled “Strengthen Your Safety Culture” that focused on the importance of safety culture and ways executive leadership can focus on culture the improve outcomes. Panellists included Dr. Joel Moody, Chief Prevention Officer at the Ministry of Labour Training and Skills Development; Tyler Davey, CEO of Alcumus; and Elias Makhoul, Health, Safety and Research Excellence Specialist at Modern Niagara Group Inc.
The next webinar will take place on Feb. 16, and will outline how organizations can use audit tools to improve their health and safety outcomes.
The League of Champions is a cross-sectoral organization dedicated to health and safety excellence through collaboration and information sharing on real-world health and safety situations. Those interested in improving their organization’s safety culture are encouraged to become members of the league.