Legal duties of the front line

Five steps supervisors can take to protect themselves, employees

On Nov. 7, 2002, Peter Hammett was working as a contract foreman in Ponoka, Alta., where he was supervising a stucco crew. The crew was removing and installing new siding on a two-and-a-half storey apartment building.

The crew was using a scissor lift as a work platform to reach higher parts of the building. A few crew members noticed two overhead power lines near the north end of the building and warned Hammett of the hazard. Taking note of this hazard, Hammett nonetheless decided to continue using the lift.

Later in the day, while removing wooden siding from the building, the lift made contact with the power line, killing one of Hammett’s crew members. Hammett was charged with failing to take reasonable care to protect the health and safety of workers under his supervision. He pleaded guilty and was fined $10,000 plus a $1,500 victim fine surcharge.

When commenting on the case, Alberta Human Resources and Employment Minister Clint Dunford said: “Safety must be everybody’s priority and supervisors must take responsibility for ensuring their workers’ safety.”

Everyone who undertakes, or has the authority to direct how another person does work or performs a task, is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person, or any other person, arising from that work or task. Front-line supervisors need to be aware of their responsibilities when it comes to workplace health and safety. This will assist them greatly when deciding on actions to take to protect workers under their care and will also aid in providing a due diligence defence in the event of a serious injury accident.

When an accident results in serious injury or death, government safety investigators and possibly the police will conduct an investigation. Prosecution is the tool being used to drive home the point that companies and supervisors need to get serious about safety.

By assuming a supervisory or line management position, supervisors are accepting the risk of legal accountability. Unfortunately most front-line positions have little control over how well a safety program functions. Larry Hansen, author of The Architecture of Safety Excellence, said “it is unrealistic and unreasonable to ask people to fix a system that they do not design or control. The functions of planning, organizing, directing, controlling, measuring and monitoring work and process are components of the management system and corporate leadership. People act as they believe their bosses want them to behave.”

Given these realities, there are strategies that front-line supervisors can employ to protect themselves and workers.

Always think about safety: Front-line supervisors must be aware that every decision they make can have a positive or negative impact on safety. Decisions must be carefully considered before action is taken to ensure all safety implications have been considered. The supervisor should consider the “reasonableness” of the decision and err on the side of caution. Work with the goal in mind that, at the end of the day, everyone gets to go home.

Engage in quality safety activities: Safety is a simple process of identifying hazards, eliminating or controlling the hazard and communicating this to workers. Workers should always be aware of hazards and what they can do to control or eliminate the risks. Unfortunately, many workers fall into the trap of performing a safety activity just for the sake of doing it. Supervisors can play an important role in bringing value back into the activity by reinforcing the hazard that is being identified and controlled. Supervisors need to encourage hazard identification and reporting from all workers.

Pass on the decision-making responsibility: Supervisors need to manage what is within their control and communicate high-risk hazards, especially ones that impact production, up the organizational ladder. They must ensure decisions that may affect the health and safety of workers are made from a senior management level. Supervisors should never inadvertently take on the responsibility for organizational decisions.

Make managers aware of safety system failures: People are quick to blame an incident on an unsafe act or unsafe condition, but failures in the safety system are often to blame. Supervisors can identify the system failures, document them and communicate findings to management. The supervisor should ensure critical job tasks are identified and proper formal hazard assessments are completed for these tasks. Controls need to be put in place for these hazards and then safe operating procedures written. They need to ensure workers are trained and competent to perform all the tasks required of them. If this is not the case, then they must bring it to management’s attention.

Document everything: Supervisors should keep a notebook with them at all times. They need to be extremely disciplined and document all actions related to safety, including names, dates and times. The first decision should be to strive to do things right. When issues are outside their control, write them down, along with recommendations. This will become an important legal defence if things should go tragically wrong.

Rob Stewart is an organizational performance consultant with Calgary-based Pragmatic Solutions. For more information, visit www.pragmatic-solutions.com.

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