'Employers should not wait for workers to complain about heat stress'
While many Canadians are enjoying the summer weather and vacation season, “high heat” can of course become a big hazard for workers.
Heat stress is the biggest risk when outside temperatures are reaching record highs — and for some, the consequences could be deadly.
“That’s a medical condition when the human body reaches a temperature of at least 38 degrees Celsius, and the body gains heat faster than it can shed it. If you have heat stress, you can have symptoms like nausea, dizziness, vomiting. On the other hand, that can be fatal,” says Geoff Mason, associate at Miller Thomson in Vancouver.
How to ensure worker safety
So what do employers need to know when protecting workers who may be subjected to high heat?
“What you’d like to have in a plan is very practical information educating about the risks; providing information about what symptoms of heat stroke or other heat risks might look like and give tools to identify when a worker is at risk, and then providing very specific steps that they can take to make the environment safer for the workers,” says Laurie Jessome, partner in the employment and labour group at Cassels in Toronto.
But before that safety plan is drawn up, it’s crucial for the employer to canvass the specific conditions in the workplace.
“The first thing you should do is assess whether or not there is a potential risk of heat stress in the workplace. If you have identified a risk of heat stress, then you have to conduct what’s called a heat stress risk assessment,” says Mason.
This includes asking a number of questions: “Why is there a risk? Where’s that coming from? And what’s the extent of that?” he says.
“This whole part of the process is really just trying to understand the lay of the land of the workplace and to get a strong understanding of what those risks are.”
As well, there are other factors to consider such as to which types of workers are in those vulnerable areas.
“People who are older; obesity can be a factor that increases your likelihood of heat stress, physical fitness is another factor; medical conditions; and the nature of the work — if it’s high activity, and high intensity and outdoors. All of those things should be identified,” says Mason.
In conducting an effective risk assessment, employers have to ask: “Have I really looked at my own work environment to make sure I understand the hazards that exist there? and then take all reasonable steps to identify or to address those risks that they’ve identified,” says Jessome.
A safety expert recently provided a series of steps that employers can take to protect workers from wildfire and smoky conditions.
Look to the labour ministries for heat advisories
While these processes may be cumbersome depending on the physical size and scope of the workplace, employers can turn to governments for assistance, according to Jessome.
“Ministries of labour in many provinces have issued guidelines for employers who have workers working in hot conditions. Those resources are free, employers should definitely review them and implement any recommended strategies.”
If those ministry resources don’t provide all the answers, there is another agency that could be contacted, says Mason.
“If in doubt, contact your local workers’ compensation board, and err on the side of assuming that there is some risk because there is a general overarching duty placed on employers to ensure that their employees have a safe and healthy work environment.”
Employers and managers should also look at ways to reduce the dangers.
“If you can eliminate the risk, you should do that. It’s generally going to make life a lot easier as an employer — aside from the obvious benefits of providing the greatest degree of protection to employees — but that would be the gold standard,” says Mason.
Providing plenty of engineering solutions is often helpful in managing the heat, he says.
“These can include things like insulation and heat shields, air conditioning, ventilation, misting stations, even automating part of roles. That can be, at least when it comes to cutting heat stress, a helpful tool; rest stations, fans, dehumidifiers, things like that.”
Employers should be ready to leave when wildfires begin to approach at-risk workplaces, says another lawyer.
Unsafe work refusals and payroll issues
Employers also have the right to refuse unsafe work but the primary responsibility lies with the employer to proactively evaluate safety risks and address them, says Jessome.
“Employers should not wait for workers to complain about heat stress.”
When the decision is made to send workers home, do they have to be paid? There are a number of caveats, according to Jessome.
“Generally speaking, employers don’t have to pay employees for time that they haven’t worked so if an employer has decided not to schedule work on certain days because they think the outdoor temperature is too high, that’s not something that the employee would typically have the right to be paid for.”
However, there are certain instances in which the opposite is true, she says.
“If an employer has called an employee into work, and then sent them home before that employee has completed three hours of work, they would be entitled to their three-hour minimum and then, generally speaking, in most provinces, if the employee puts their hand up and says, ‘This is an unsafe work environment, and I’m issuing a work refusal,’ they do have the right to be paid during the period of time in which the employer is assessing it.”
In the end, good organizations provide a wide range of measures, despite the costs, says Mason.
“As an employer, you should be looking at implementing as many of these processes as possible to reduce the risk as much as possible — not just from a liability perspective. The more that you can show that you have done to address this, the more likely your workers’ compensation board is going to agree that you’ve taken all steps reasonably necessary to provide a safe and healthy work environment.”
“It might feel like taking some of these steps is excessive, or you might feel inclined to take some shortcuts, but in the long run, those investments are worthwhile, and generally pay off,” says Mason.
