WorkplaceNL’s Safety Leadership Awards recognize employers and workers who demonstrate leadership and a visible commitment to health and safety in workplaces in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The recipient of the 2024 WorkplaceNL Safety Leadership Award for Employers is RothLochston Constructors Inc! Learn more about RothLochston’s vision to ensure the safety and well-being of all employees in a Q&A with Rick Donato, HSEQ Manager.
Q: How would you describe your organization’s safety vision?
We are relentless in our pursuit of providing a safe workplace to our employees, vendors and subcontractors, so that they can return home safely to their families, every day. Our commitment to a strong health, safety, and environmental program is evident in our well-developed management system and the actions we take to protect all our employees, vendors and subcontractors from harm.
We provide and maintain a safe and healthy working environment by meeting – and often exceeding – industry standards, OHS legislation, and client expectations.
The Company’s objective is to strive for excellence in HSEQ performance with a culture of care, integrity, and accountability. We achieve these goals by:
1. Showcasing our leadership’s commitment to safety.
2. Integrating safety into all parts of our business.
3. Ensuring time and resources are available.
4. Hosting weekly meetings with the senior management team to provide an overview of our Key Performance Indicators, both leading and lagging, for all our business units.
5. Maintaining compliance with ISO 45001 International Standard for Safety.
6. Planning and executing annual HSEQ Corporate Action Plans.
7. Presenting focused campaigns throughout the year to increase awareness and compliance on specific procedures.
8. Investing in Safety Software.
Q: How does your organization promote and achieve your vision?
In 2019, RothLochston developed a proactive program to address gaps in our management system. Annually, all trends, gaps, deficiencies, and weaknesses are reviewed/identified. From this, we developed a Corporate Action Plan for the next year.
We have experienced great success with the implementation of our action plans. The plan is communicated to all employees and executed throughout the year, with progress updates provided regularly.
1. The senior management team meet weekly to discuss safety metrics and the progress of the action plan.
2. Field employees meet weekly to review the safety program and receive regular education on policies/procedures.
3. Safety program progress is communicated monthly to our corporate office staff.
Q: You mention reviewing performance with employees. Can you tell us more about how they’re involved in addressing deficiencies?
For project execution, all employees follow RothLochston’s Layers of Defense, which include:
1. Risk Assessment/Job Safety Analysis (JSA) – A high-level overview and risk assessment of the project.
2. Task Hazard Assessment: Crew level assessment completed by the frontline employees and supervisors based on the tasks that will be completed on that shift.
3. Take 5: A process that is completed individually to assess the risk associated with an individual’s specific work task. Take 5’s offers a step-by-step approach to recognize, assess, control hazards, and monitor the ongoing effectiveness of controls.
4. Safe work observations and focus inspections: Conducted by leadership employees at every level of the organization. They provide a forum for dialogue, to address concerns, and to reward good safety practices and behaviors.
Q: We know that a strong safety culture requires that everyone take responsibility for workplace health and safety. Can you elaborate on RothLochston’s safety culture?
RothLochston is committed to investing in our safety programs, ensuring that they are well-resourced and effective. Our safety culture is based on a commitment to continuous improvement, ongoing education, open communication, and active employee involvement at every level.
We believe in a collaborative approach to safety, where our leadership team, employees, and skilled tradespeople all play a vital role in maintaining a safe work environment. By fostering a proactive culture, we create workplaces where every employee is protected and empowered.
Q: How does your organization overcome health and safety challenges/barriers?
We overcome health and safety challenges/barriers through the development of our Corporate Action Plans. We continue to experience year-over-year improvements by proactively and effectively identifying any deficiencies or risks and addressing them.
Excellent relations, communications, engagement, and education between all levels of the organization are key components to overcoming and addressing safety challenges.
Through our digital safety management software program, Vector Solutions, incidents are reported in real time. Senior management receives the preliminary report for each individual incident within hours. This digital reporting and communication enable senior management to proactively manage all incidents to ensure the affected employee or employees are cared for in the appropriate manner. All incidents are thoroughly investigated by independent advisors to ensure root causes are identified and mitigation efforts and actions are timely and appropriate.
The implementation of Vector Solutions has elevated the effectiveness of our safety management program. We digitally manage not only our incidents, but also all hazards, inspections, observations, corrective actions, training, reporting, and trend analysis all on one platform.
Q: Winning this award is a significant recognition of your whole team’s health and safety performance! How else does your organization promote and recognize employee engagement in health and safety?
We have implemented various programs that provide employee recognition for safe work practices.
The RothLochston Incident Prevention Program (RIPP) is centered around the submission of HSEQ cards, safe work observations, focus inspections, safety improvements, above and beyond safety program participation. Employees receive RIPP tickets based on the criteria for a chance to win a prize as recognition for participation and proactive performance.
Our internal Cheers for Peers program is a recognition initiative that we have implemented over the past few years. It allows colleagues to acknowledge each other’s efforts, expressing appreciation and gratitude for excellent work performance, team contributions, and outstanding participation.
Q: One goal of our awards program is to allow employers and workers across the province to be inspired by our winners’ actions. Can you leave us with a specific example of actions taken to prevent the recurrence of workplace incidents?
So, in 2022, we experienced a significant increase in our ergonomic injuries. We decided this would be a good element to include in the 2023 Corporate Action Plan.
This 2023 Action Plan Element included the following:
a) A review of our entire Ergonomic Policies and Procedures by a Certified Ergonomics Specialist.
b) Improved training and awareness.
c) Ergonomic assessments at all work locations.
d) Implementation of pre-work stretching programs on our work sites and in our corporate office.
e) Participation in WorkplaceNL’s Move Well, Work Well program.
f) Creation of Early and Safe Return to Work committees to assist with efficient management of ergonomic injuries.
g) Creation of a regular ergonomic focus inspection.
h) Regular communication with our employees through safety meetings to discuss ergonomic hazards and controls.
i) Promote the identification of ergonomic hazards in every hazard assessment to ensure good controls are implemented and all ergonomic hazards are considered and communicated.
j) A reduced target for the Ergonomic Injury Frequency Rate from 4.7 to 3.6.
This campaign resulted in a 23% reduction in ergonomic incidents!