WSPS conference demonstrates many ways to get there.

For companies seeking safety excellence, simply trying to do better at the basics is not enough. This message was the core of a keynote presentation by Jeremy Shorthouse, manager, environmental health and safety for Molson Coors, at the February 21 Workplace Safety and Prevention Services’ (WSPS) warehouse safety conference in Mississauga, Ontario.

Close to 150 participants with warehouse safety responsibilities gathered to hear Shorthouse and a host of other speakers talk about both big-picture and detailed safety issues.

Shorthouse asked his audience to visualize “safety heaven”, then challenged them to compare this to their own company’s practices. “Has your leadership and health and safety committee sat down together and outlined what health and safety look like for your organization?” he asked.

Eliminate luck

Companies that aim for a target of zero lost-time incidents (LTIs) scare him, Shorthouse said, because success here can simply be the result of dumb luck. To illustrate his point he showed a dramatic video of a forklift bumping into racking in a crowded and messy warehouse. The loaded racking then collapsed onto the machine as the operator bailed out and scrambled to safety. That company, he noted, had a safety record of 1,347 days since its last LTI. Why? Pure luck. “The goal,” he said, “is to eliminate luck.”

Zero incidents is a lagging indicator. Shorthouse said you should harness the “power of 100 percent” instead by using leading indicators. This means 100 percent success in all the following areas: leadership buy-in; employee involvement; employee empowerment; health and safety compliance; health and safety inspections completed; and, health and safety corrective actions taken. Making sure these are all checked off takes luck out of the equation.

He talked about the importance of values in building a safe work culture at your organization. Employees work safer when they believe it’s important to the bosses, he said, adding that excellent managers manage by values not priorities, because priorities can change but core values do not.

It’s up to the most senior person to be accountable and to challenge the status quo to inspire others. This requires visibility, participation, coaching and empowering all employees to take the lead when they see something that needs to be fixed. It also means using rewards to reinforce safe behaviour and proactive problem solving.

Shorthouse summed by by giving the audience four takeways: 1. Define health and safety for your company. 2. It’s a journey; don’t expect overnight transformation. 3. Zero incidents means nothing. 4. Use leading indicators and the power of 100 percent.

Marijuana in the warehouse

“What employees do on their own time must become our business,” said Dan Demers, the conference’s second keynote speaker.

Demers is senior manager, strategic business development at CannAmm, a provider of occupational and employment drug testing services. He explained that there are big gaps in the information available about marijuana’s effects on human behaviour and performance, and what we do know suggests employers may be in for a bumpy ride as the new legalization legislation takes effect.

Intoxication versus impairment

The pending Canadian legislation is making a big mistake Demers said, mixing up intoxication (which works well for alcohol ingestion) with impairment. Alcohol contains one substance that impacts behaviour: ethanol. Cannabis is much more complex, with an average cannabis plant containing over 70 psychoactive cannabinoids. These are the chemicals that give the “high”, or, more scientifically, disrupt the human nervous system that regulates how we perceive the world around us.

The brain disruption caused by ingesting cannabis varies widely depending on how it is ingested (Demers noted six ways, including smoking, eating, transdermal, eyedrops, aerosols and rectal), the specific plant itself (marijuana plants are highly genetically modified to promote certain traits and to increase the concentration of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), and the form of the product (for example, concentrates like ‘shatter’ contain up to 90 percent THC). Most studies on the effects of cannabis have been done on smoking. It is impossible to predict how other forms and modes of ingestion will impact impairment, he says.

Apple vs hubcap

But, it is known that brain disruption caused by cannabis ingestion lasts well beyond the feeling of impairment. It can be more than 24 hours or, for chronic users, more than 20 days. Alcohol disrupts neurotransmitters, the chemicals that allow nerves to make connections, but once the alcohol is processed by the body, the effects are gone. This is why comparing alcohol to cannabis is “like comparing an apple to a hubcap,” Demers said.

Marijuana’s lingering effects include lowered alertness; divided attention; loss of complex reasoning; impaired memory; and poor judgment of distance, speed and time. And this is why, Demers said, employers will now have a stake in what employees are doing on their own time.

Medical marijuana

While evidence shows marijuana to be helpful for conditions like MS spasticity, chronic pain and nausea, Demers noted, the Canadian Medical Association does not believe there is enough evidence to warrant considering medical marijuana as a “medical intervention”. Nonetheless, it is legal, and since 2014 medical marijuana users have jumped 10-fold in Canada.

In the workplace, Demers said employers need to check the medical authorization of employees using it, and then make accommodation via alternate medical treatment, modifying the job or placing the employee on leave (medical or otherwise). Although it may be legal, without a Drug Identification Number (DIN) its pharmacokinetic properties are unknown and you don’t have any way of knowing how it will affect an employee’s work performance.

Focus on risk

Since THC’s effects are so variable, employers need to focus on the risks rather than trying to determine impairment, Demers asserts. The U.S. Department of Transport has implemented a zero-tolerance policy for its employees, but managers will need to manage policy changes like this carefully, as it will be controversial.

As well, Demers counseled employers not to make these common mistakes in dealing with drug and alcohol use on the workplace. Don’t send drunk workers home in their own vehicle; instead let them sleep it off in a break room. Don’t fire an employee who asks for help with an addiction issue. Don’t be inconsistent. Don’t turn a blind eye to a supervisor who is dealing drugs on your premises.

Introducing a “fit for duty’ program will be a key step, Demers said. It needs to balance employees’ rights against risks to safety. First you need to establish a policy, then train supervisors to recognize staff who are unfit for duty. Finally you may implement a drug-testing program, but it must be forensically sound so as to be defensible.

Sleeping and the job

We live in a sleep-deprived society, and whether it’s due to shift work, family life or too much screen time, the effects are the same. Aside from the immediate effects of poor concentration and lack of energy, chronic poor sleep can contribute to obesity, cancer, heart disease and depression, said Stacy Irvine, the founder and co-owner of Totum Life Science, a health and fitness practice in Toronto, in a presentation at the WSPS event.

Given the serious side effects of sleep deprivation and night-shift work which she detailed in her talk, Irvine underlined that shift work is a safety hazard. However, its harmful effects can be minimized by using a rotation of two to three day shifts followed by two to three night shifts. As well, employers should incorporate extra rest breaks and sleep rooms for night shift workers, and rotate the shifts forward from daytime to afternoon to night. Irvine offered several self-help suggestions for her audience, which employers should support.

She counseled those who work shifts to concentrate on good nutrition because the choices made at night tend towards bad salty, sugary foods with low nutritive value.

• Increasing exercise is another way to minimize the effects of shift work. Doing it before work makes it a priority and harder to skip, she said.
• Sleep well when possible and get more than four to five hours a night.
• Get frequent screening for cancers and other health issues associated with shift work.
• Don’t work for more than eight hours at a time, and if you must, a break of 45 minutes will help to reduce errors on the job.
• Avoid caffeine for at least five hours before you need to sleep and also avoid alcohol as it disrupts sleep patterns.
• If you work the night shift and go home in daylight, wear sunglasses as reducing the amount of light in your eyes will help you get to sleep.