Preparation is everything for a smoothly run H&S committee
In the past few years, the Durham District School Board (DDSB), just east of Toronto, has established some precedent setting health and safety policies.
The joint health and safety committee (JHSC) was the first to recommend banning laser pointers in schools — they cause retinal damage, explains worker co-chair Randy Scott — and they tackled the problem of mould in school portables before other boards recognized it as a problem.
“We were one of the first to test with moister meters for mould growth and that spread out across the province,” he says.
The committee has been successful because the members are so proactive, both on the employee and management side, says Scott. While meetings are the official forum for committee business, they are only the most visible demonstration of what the committee does. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes that enables the meetings to run smoothly and effectively, he says.
Before the official committee meeting, the worker representatives get together in the morning to review what is on the agenda and what they want to bring forward. When you do your background work and come to the meeting prepared and briefed on the issues, it becomes a lot easier to come up with solutions, says Scott.
And earlier this year, the co-chairs and manager of health and safety, Gary Gibson, began a new practice of getting together a few days before the committee meeting.
It gives the other side some sense of what will be coming up later in the week and that means there will be fewer surprises and fewer table-pounding tantrums. “That is not working together, that is showmanship,” he says. People don’t want that. They want to know that if there is a health and safety concern the committee solves it as quickly and as satisfactorily as possible.
DDSB’s health and safety committee functions smoothly compared to others, says Gibson. And one of the important factors is a special Safety Initiatives Committee which meets three or four times a year.
The JHSC’s co-chairs and several senior superintendents are on the committee chaired by the director of education. “It gives them (the co-chairs) a direct link with the very top level of the organization,” says Gibson. It helps the decision-makers understand health and safety issues and where the committee fits in, while giving the committee members a look at the “big-picture” issues facing the organization.
Good clear committee guidelines are also essential so that meetings don’t get bogged down in procedural issues. The organization’s safety professional has to sit on the committee but only as an advisor, not as a management representative, says Gibson.
Training is also an important cornerstone of the JHSC strategy at the Durham School Board. Ontario legislation requires that at least one member from management and one worker representative be certified by the Workplace Safety Insurance Board. These members have the authority to stop dangerous work. But the DDSB certifies all 15 of its members. What’s more, committee members take the training together so that the two sides get used to working together, says Gibson.
“In some committees I’ve seen there can be a great divide and the wider that divide is the harder it is at the end of the day to get work done. By sitting down together at the same time they are working collaboratively, working through the training,” says Gibson.
Like Scott, Gibson also says the pre-meeting preparation is crucial for well-run meetings. Committee members are given a half day off work just for meeting preparation.
“It helps keep our meetings on track and more productive,” he says.
The joint health and safety committee (JHSC) was the first to recommend banning laser pointers in schools — they cause retinal damage, explains worker co-chair Randy Scott — and they tackled the problem of mould in school portables before other boards recognized it as a problem.
“We were one of the first to test with moister meters for mould growth and that spread out across the province,” he says.
The committee has been successful because the members are so proactive, both on the employee and management side, says Scott. While meetings are the official forum for committee business, they are only the most visible demonstration of what the committee does. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes that enables the meetings to run smoothly and effectively, he says.
Before the official committee meeting, the worker representatives get together in the morning to review what is on the agenda and what they want to bring forward. When you do your background work and come to the meeting prepared and briefed on the issues, it becomes a lot easier to come up with solutions, says Scott.
And earlier this year, the co-chairs and manager of health and safety, Gary Gibson, began a new practice of getting together a few days before the committee meeting.
It gives the other side some sense of what will be coming up later in the week and that means there will be fewer surprises and fewer table-pounding tantrums. “That is not working together, that is showmanship,” he says. People don’t want that. They want to know that if there is a health and safety concern the committee solves it as quickly and as satisfactorily as possible.
DDSB’s health and safety committee functions smoothly compared to others, says Gibson. And one of the important factors is a special Safety Initiatives Committee which meets three or four times a year.
The JHSC’s co-chairs and several senior superintendents are on the committee chaired by the director of education. “It gives them (the co-chairs) a direct link with the very top level of the organization,” says Gibson. It helps the decision-makers understand health and safety issues and where the committee fits in, while giving the committee members a look at the “big-picture” issues facing the organization.
Good clear committee guidelines are also essential so that meetings don’t get bogged down in procedural issues. The organization’s safety professional has to sit on the committee but only as an advisor, not as a management representative, says Gibson.
Training is also an important cornerstone of the JHSC strategy at the Durham School Board. Ontario legislation requires that at least one member from management and one worker representative be certified by the Workplace Safety Insurance Board. These members have the authority to stop dangerous work. But the DDSB certifies all 15 of its members. What’s more, committee members take the training together so that the two sides get used to working together, says Gibson.
“In some committees I’ve seen there can be a great divide and the wider that divide is the harder it is at the end of the day to get work done. By sitting down together at the same time they are working collaboratively, working through the training,” says Gibson.
Like Scott, Gibson also says the pre-meeting preparation is crucial for well-run meetings. Committee members are given a half day off work just for meeting preparation.
“It helps keep our meetings on track and more productive,” he says.
