Safety Spotlight: 3 Health and Safety Leaders You Should Know

Health and Safety experts have one of the hardest yet most important roles in any organization and quite frankly, we think they deserve more love. From construction to mining, we’re proud to be partnered with some truly inspirational change agents that are championing the workplace safety movement.

We recently sat down with three of our customers to learn more about how they run their safety programs, share some best practices, and discuss their EHS industry predictions for 2017.

Meet Roger Belair – Director, Health, Safety and Environment at Dumas

Dumas is a trusted international provider of world-class underground mining services. Safety is the company’s top priority and Roger Belair joined the team in 2012 to champion safety excellence. Roger brings more than 25 years of experience to his role as Director, Health, Safety and Environment at Dumas and provides strategic direction to the global HSE department, oversees program design and works closely with operations to ensure safety guidance is provided to all stakeholders.

Safety Culture at Dumas
Dumas’ safety mission is to achieve Zero Harm and ensure every employee returns home safely at the end of every shift. Roger and the HSE department have built a tested and effective safety system that focuses on ongoing employee training both in the classroom and through eLearning. Roger strives to boost employee engagement in the HSE program and facilitate two-way communication across the company. To support this, Dumas has implemented a Speak Up Listen Up initiative that encourages employees to stop and talk to each other about unsafe conditions and behavior and hold each other accountable to work safer.

Greatest Safety Achievements
As a safety professional, Roger is most proud of his injury reduction track record and has lead teams that have worked multi-million hours on projects with zero fatalities and little to no lost time incidents. He attributes this success to securing system buy-in at the employee level as well as bolstering senior management’s engagement in the HSE program. Dumas has also been recognized for its achievements in safety innovation and have won multiple awards from the Ontario Mine Contractors Safety Association (OMCSA).

Passion for People
Roger Belair’s fundamental passion for people and desire to make a difference initially led him to pursue a career in Health and Safety. When asked what he loves most about his job, Roger said designing safety programs that help save lives.

Roger’s Mining Industry Outlook for 2017
Roger believes there are many opportunities for companies to improve repetitive processes and predicts we’ll start to see more innovation across the industry this year. He feels process improvements and introducing new systems and new technology will enable employees to mine faster and safer. Ultimately, Roger hopes that more industry innovation will inspire younger workers to get into mining and find rewarding, fulfilling careers.

Meet Connie Saltel, Health & Safety Manager at O’Connor Electric

O’Connor Electric is a full service electrical contractor serving the commercial, industrial and institutional construction sectors across Ontario. The team at O’Connor are dedicated to delivering quality electrical installations while maintaining a safe environment for both workers and customers. Connie Saltel, O’Connor’s Health and Safety Manger, joined the team six years ago to help design and implement the company’s robust health and safety program.

Safety Culture at O’Connor Electric 
Connie states that for an EHS program to be truly effective, change must come from the top down. She believes safety success at O’Connor stems from two key things:

– President Paul Morell’s safety-first approach and ongoing investment in the company’s EHS program

– Integrating technology into the safety program to improve employee engagement and increase overall safety awareness. It’s a rule at O’Connor that before any employee starts a job, they must review and document potential hazards first with the eCompliance mobile app.

The EHS team has big safety plans for 2017. Not only is O’Connor celebrating its 30^th anniversary, the company is also participating in a WSIB/IHSA Safety Group and plan to achieve COR.

Why Connie Loves Being a Health and Safety Pro
Connie enjoys the variety that comes with being a Health and Safety professional and feels lucky that she gets to go to a job that she truly loves every day. Whether she’s in the office or in the field conducting a site inspection, she feels proud that her work helps ensure employees go home safely at the end of each day.

Connie’s Construction Predictions for 2017
Connie can’t stress the importance of consistent, high quality training enough and believes that in 2017 we’ll see more construction companies invest in new types of training for their employees. She specifically recommends construction companies complete Working at Heights, WHMIS 2015 and the upcoming Construction Health and Safety Awareness training program.

Meet Marty Frouws, Safety Director at Peak Engineering

Peak Engineering & Construction is a leading provider of general contracting, design/build and construction management services throughout eastern Ontario. Marty Frouws, Safety Director at Peak, administers the company’s occupational health and safety program and helps keep over 75 employees safe every day.

Safety Culture at Peak
Marty feels very fortunate to work at a company like Peak where safety is everyone’s first priority and employees inherently understand why safety is so important. He said Peak is very much a family environment where everyone looks out for each other, works collaboratively and doesn’t fight safety change. Over the last year and a half Peak revamped its safety program, moving from paper to a cloud-based safety management system. Digitizing inspection forms has helped Marty and his team become more efficient, made the company’s pursuit to achieve COR easier, and employees now know exactly what is expected of them as they participate in the safety program.

One Million Man Hours Without a Lost Time Injury
In 2016 Peak celebrated 25 years in business and achieved an important safety milestone that was ten years in the making: one million man hours without a lost time injury. Peak received this prestigious award from the Ontario General Contractors Association. Marty is extremely proud of this achievement and said it couldn’t have been done without 100% commitment from every single employee.

Driven by Family
Marty’s incredibly passionate about safety and is determined to succeed so his employees leave work every day with ten fingers and ten toes. Although he says reviewing occupational health and safety regulations can be a bit dry at times, getting to see his employees return home to their families each day keeps him going.

2017 Predictions 
Marty believes that this year we’ll see an increase in companies aligning safety programs to accreditation programs like COR to increase employee participation and ultimately create safer workplaces.

Show Your EHS Department Some Love

Let’s hear it for these three Safety Nerds and for every other Health and Safety expert out there that gives their all so everyone can make it home safe. Thank your EHS department for all the work they do and show them some love. They deserve it.

Share Your Safety Story
Are you a safety expert? Share your story with us and we’ll send you a free Safety Nerd t-shirt!