The Employer of Choice program for 2012 is now open

Start now to earn your Employer of Choice designation in 2012. Log in or set up a new account at www.steceoc.com. You have until November 30 to complete the employer audit and employee survey.

It will take about 50 to 60 hours to complete your application. Employers of Choice are announced at the 2012 HOST tourism convention next spring.

Tourism industries are facing a potential labour short-fall of 6,500 workers within the next 15 years. Employers of Choice are in a prime position to attract – and keep – the best workers.

View the 2011 Employers of Choice.

Log in our sign up for Employer of Choice and begin your application now.

Find out more about the Employer of Choice program.

Dates: May 1 - November 30, 2011

Charter signatories take the lead on making Saskatchewan a safer place

On June 10 last year, 128 Saskatchewan employers signed the province’s first Health and Safety Leadership Charter, an initiative co-sponsored by WorkSafe Saskatchewan and Safe Saskatchewan. The charter was founded as an opportunity for business and community leaders to make a public commitment to help solve what has been described as Saskatchewan’s “injury epidemic.” So far, an additional 75 senior leaders have committed to adding their names to the charter at the second annual signing at TCU Place in Saskatoon, June 9.

The principles of the Saskatchewan Health and Safety Leadership Charter are based on the CEO Leadership Charter developed by Bruce Power in 2005. The Conference Board of Canada has now adopted the Bruce Power charter, expanding its scope to become the national Senior Executive Health and Safety Leadership Charter.

WorkSafe Saskatchewan and Safe Saskatchewan received permission to adapt the principles of that charter and to create one that would apply to both the private and the public sector.

“We wanted to bring that national charter to Saskatchewan, but we wanted to accommodate the interest of the provincial government in signing onto the charter,” says Safe Saskatchewan CEO Gord Moker.

WorkSafe Saskatchewan and Safe Saskatchewan began planning with modest goals.
“When we started out, we thought if we could get 100 signatories we’d be doing really well,” Moker says. At the inaugural event, 200 leaders representing 128 companies signed the charter. In September, the North Saskatoon Business Association hosted a second signing event and another 47 companies joined the initiative, followed by 20 more at a third event hosted by the Humboldt Chamber of Commerce. The current total number of signatories is just under 200.

“This response shows the character of Saskatchewan people and its leaders,” Moker says. “While the Conference Board charter has just over 300 signatories since 2007, in two short years we will have 275 government, business and community leaders who are demonstrating their commitment to health and safety, in and away from the workplace.”

Safe Saskatchewan and WorkSafe Saskatchewan have now created an annual event around the leadership charter. The gathering of Saskatchewan senior leaders will welcome new charter signatories, honour past signatories, and provide an opportunity to establish a dialogue on health and safety.

Moker stresses that signing the Charter is not simply a photo opportunity. It’s making a commitment to work toward the elimination of unintentional injuries in Saskatchewan. “It’s a leader making a pledge on behalf of their company,” he explains. “Any change in a safety culture has to start at the top. Even if employees want a change to occur, it’s not going to happen unless the leaders embody the change.”

“We want help putting an end to this injury epidemic,” Moker says. “We have the second highest injury rate in the workplace and the highest injury rate away from the workplace in Canada. People don’t realize that after work in our province, there’s twice the chance that people will have an injury, four times the chance that they’ll suffer permanent injury and five times the chance that they’ll die from a preventable injury after five o’clock or after their work shift.”

“We accept injuries as a part of everyday life here in Saskatchewan, and we can’t continue this way,” he adds. “The answer lies in transforming our culture to the point where injury prevention is a core value with every business, every government agency, and every citizen in our province.”

Please email info@safesask.com and a charter organizer will be in touch with you, or phone Gord Moker of Safe Saskatchewan at (306) 352-3810.

Return-to-Work plans: lessening the impact of workplace injuries

Guest post
By Heather Becker, Manager, Social Marketing, Planning and Communications, Workers' Compensation Board

“It happened so fast. I wish I could turn back the clock.”

Unfortunately, you can’t undo an injury, but there are steps employers and injured workers can take to help life stay as normal as possible during recovery.

A work injury affects more than just the injured worker. The person’s family may suffer from the change in routine or financial loss. The community may lose a valued coach or committee member. Co-workers who witness an injury can be impacted emotionally or their work duties may change. Injuries are always costly to the employer, whether it is through lost productivity, additional hiring, retraining or surcharges. There may even be damaged equipment from the incident.

When a worker is injured, the everyone’s goal is to have the worker recover as quickly and as fully as possible. This is where a well developed return-to-work (RTW) plan is key.

Grant Van Eaton, Director of Case Management South at the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB), says: “The best scenario is where the return-to-work program is set up ahead of time, and the employers let the workers know what it is. In these situations, an injured worker knows what information the employer needs before they go to their health care provider. This saves repeat visits to the healthcare provider. In many cases, the worker is able to return to the workplace the day of the injury or the day after with their restrictions in hand.”

Van Eaton explains that in the best RTW plans, the employer already has meaningful, productive employment planned for injured workers.

Annette Goski, Account Manager at the WCB, explains that a RTW plan is like having a fire drill or emergency plan.

“It’s something you want in place before you have an injury,” Goski says. “It makes it efficient if you’ve established alternate duties for all of your workers. Having a pre-determined RTW plan means that every injured worker in a workplace will be treated fairly and consistently.”

She explains that implementing the RTW plan helps both the worker and the employer. For workers, she says: “They stay connected to the workplace, helping them get back to their regular jobs faster. The longer they are away, the harder it is and the less likely they are to return to work. There could be new people, new equipment and new ways of doing things. A RTW program makes the transition back to work easier. The social contact also helps people to recover faster.”

Goski points out that returning to work also allows workers to retain benefits that could be lost when they are out of the workplace.

She says that maintaining routine has a great psychological benefit for the worker and the worker’s family.

“It lessens the impact and perception of disability when you get out of the house and you are back with your co-workers on a day to day basis,” she says.

RTW programs also help employers. Goski says, “I tell employers, your employees are your most valuable asset. You’ve spent a lot of money hiring and training them. You want to retain that knowledge in your workplace.”

You can’t change an injury once it has happened, but through a thoughtful RTW plan, you can mitigate its impact for your employees and your company.

The WCB offers a free two-day Effective Return-to-Work training course for employers. Participants leave with knowledge and tools to establish their own RTW program. For more information about RTW or the Effective RTW Training Course, visit www.worksafesask.ca.

Safety management systems reduce time-loss claims in Saskatchewan

Our colleagues at the Service and Hospitality Safety Association (SHSA) are making great strides toward reducing service and hospitality industries’ time-loss claim costs. Accommodation properties, in particular, pay more than twice the WCB rate of their counterparts in Canada’s other three western provinces, reflecting an historic trend that Safe Saskatchewan and Worksafe Saskatchewan have described as Saskatchewan’s “injury epidemic”.

The SHSA put a good dent in that trend last year, reducing claims by 159 industry wide – exceeding their goal by 260 per cent and saving an estimated $650,000 in direct costs plus $3.3 million in indirect costs for the employers involved.

The SHSA adopted a renewed strategic focus that includes helping businesses to establish comprehensive safety management systems.

A safety management system uses a systematic approach to identifying hazards and managing risks. It involves goal setting, planning and performance measurement. Most importantly, it puts the emphasis on creating a safety culture.

“We can show businesses how to do this successfully,” says Larry Glow, the SHSA’s senior safety advisor. “All they require is the willingness to improve.”

“There are some parts to it that must come first,” Glow adds. “There needs to be actual commitment – up front.”

Making that commitment public, coming from the CEO or top management, increases the likelihood of follow-through and success. So, the SHSA insists that every business that wants to improve safety start by signing the Saskatchewan Health and Safety Leadership Charter.

“If you would like to participate in the next signing of the Charter, June 9, then that means that you’re publicly saying you want to make a difference,” Glow Says.

The SHSA then works with the business to conduct a safety evaluation, essentially a one-day “mini-audit” to identify priority areas that need to be addressed. When it has completed the evaluation, the SHSA returns with an action plan for improving safety in the workplace.

“It may mean training, it may mean coaching on our part, but it’s all services we provide here out of our offices,” Glow says. “Finally, after they’ve got all that rolling, one year later we’re back in there again with another safety evaluation to show them how they’re doing.”

It might sound like an onerous task, but Glow emphasizes that it’s not at all difficult.

“We’re showing them the values of doing these things – not only reducing injuries, of course, but we’re showing, as well, the values of reduced absenteeism, we’re showing the values of improved workmanship and improved quality and so on. There’s a net benefit.”

The SHSA’s strategy includes identifying the 30 businesses within its 3900-strong membership that needed the most help to overcome their safety issues. Dubbed the “Priority 30”, these businesses accounted for 338 time-loss claims in 2009 at an estimated shared cost of $1.7 million to $3.4 million to the industry.

Glow describes it as a “best practices” group, focusing the majority of the SHSA’s resources on a whole sector, starting with hotels. The initiative provides site-specific training, claims management, incident investigation and hazard analysis. The SHSA helps those members set up the procedures, practices and policies needed to make it all work.

“Instead of working with one or two hotels per year, we’re now working with them all at once,” Glow says.

“The efficiency of bringing a whole industry sector together, as opposed to just working with one or two per year, is really going to make a difference,” he adds. “We’re giving them much more value than ever before.”

The targeted approach also makes it possible to measure success throughout the industry. Employers can see whether injury and incident rates are dropping. As claims decrease, WCB rates will follow, resulting in lower premiums for all employers.

“I predict we’ll see them going even lower than Manitoba’s and Alberta’s rates,” Glow says.

Some employers need a more rigorous standard that’s recognized across industry sectors, such as when they supply services to large construction companies. In that case, businesses can look at the Certificate of Recognition (COR) Program. Primarily developed for construction safety, COR was introduced to Saskatchewan service and hospitality industries by the SHSA in 2010, in conjunction with the Joint Industry Committee and the Saskatchewan Construction Industry Association.

In its strategic plan, the SHSA aims to certify one employer per year. It’s already advancing ahead of that plan, with one member completing certification last year and two in the works for 2011.

Most employers’ needs can be met by implementing a safety management system, Glow says. In some circumstances, however, a business needs COR before it can do business with a major employer, such as a construction company or mine site that requires the certification among all the sub-trades it contracts. Service companies that provide catering or security, for example, might need to certify.

In those cases, the SHSA is able to help its members meet their COR standards.

“We’re qualified and fully auditable,” Glow says.

The best successes come from building a safety culture, regardless of the certifications attained, he adds.

“We’re working on culture. We do that through a safety management system. Most of our employers – large employers – don’t use COR for their successes, and they are major successes. COR is important if you want to have your business recognized by another business. To go work for them, COR is very important. But most businesses don’t need that.”

Wellness: Why spending on your employees’ well being is good business

Absenteeism and turnover cost a lot more than you might think

Absenteeism and turnover are costly, as well as disruptive to your enterprise. A Statistics Canada labour force survey found that the average worker missed 10 days of work 2009, nearly double what it was just a decade earlier, costing employers about $2,500 per absent employee. Replacing employees lost through turnover costs even more, the equivalent of 18 months’ salary to replace a manager or professional or six months’ wages to replace an hourly worker. A survey last year by the Conference Board of Canada found that most employers don’t track absenteeism, so they aren’t likely to know how much it’s actually costing them.

The top reasons for missing work, the labour force survey found, boil down to:

• illness or disability,
• caring for family members,
• and personal or family responsibilities.

Much of that absenteeism is tied to workplace stress. Other studies show that sick or stressed-out employees who remain at work performing less than their best cost employers far more in lost productivity than absenteeism.

In short, employee wellness – or lack of it – costs Canadian businesses hugely, an estimated $15 to $25 billion per year.

Among the steps that organizations can take to get a handle on the problem, the Conference Board recommends:

• Identifying causes of absenteeism;
• Taking steps to improve the health and well-being of employees; and
• Having a return-to-work program in place.

Creating a workplace that supports employee wellness makes a dramatic difference. Among the benefits:
attract and retain the best employees.

• improve productivity.
• reduce employee turnover.
• increase morale.
• reduce absenteeism, injuries and illness.
• reduce health, insurance and benefits costs.

Workplace wellness programs can reduce absenteeism and turnover by as much as half, cut time-loss injury rates by two-thirds, and save $5,000 to $10,000 per employee in benefit payouts per year. Discussing options with employees is important, as leading experts on work such as University of Alberta professor emeritus Graham Lowe and York University professor Dalton Kehoe point out.

Tourism Saskatchewan leads by example

Tourism Saskatchewan introduced an employee wellness program three years ago, following discussions between management and union representatives.

“We all agreed that this was a good thing,” says Joan MacPhail, Tourism Saskatchewan Manager of Human Resources. “It was beneficial to our employees and also beneficial to the organization.”

“A wellness program recognizes that we value each employee as a whole person, rather than as just the individual that we get for eight or nine hours a day. It’s something that is reflective of trying to get a work-life balance.”

“I look at it very much as an investment in the people,” MacPhail adds. “We invest in our employees, whether it’s through training, whether it’s through workshops, be they in the office or outside the office. This as an investment as well.”

The size of the benefit can vary. Tourism Saskatchewan decided that reimbursing up to $300 per year for wellness related spending makes sense. For a smaller employer, $100 per year could be very meaningful to employees. Instead of giving money, a business might participate in corporate volunteerism, let employees leave early in summer or organize a company-sponsored trip. Plans can grow over time, expanding the range of activities and reimbursements covered.

“You need a starting point,” MacPhail says. “At the end of the day, the dollar value that the employer puts in will matter, but what matters most is that an employee can look at their employer and say, ‘they recognize that I have a life outside of work, that it can cause me stress and they’d like to help me with that’.”

A wellness plan is considered a taxable benefit. It will show up on T-4 slips, so employees need to know that in advance, MacPhail says.

“Not everything will appeal to a group of employees, whether they be six people or 600 people,” she says. “A range of services and options from which employees can choose is very valuable.”

Figuring out what to include in your wellness plan is as easy as sitting down and searching the Internet, MacPhail says. “Compared to other programs, a wellness plan is relatively easy to implement. Having that input by the employee group really makes it better customized to your organization.”