The Safetys was created to present several Manitoba occupational safety and health awards at one signature event. This year, The Safetys will be held virtually, with the awards being announced at thesafetys.ca Wednesday, October 7.

The S2SA Safety Champion Award

The S2SA Safety Champion Award serves to recognize an individual’s dedication to health and safety in the sales and service industry in Manitoba. This award is for any individual and is not limited to those who are employed in a safety-specific capacity within their organization.

The nominated individual must be employed with a member of the Sales and Service Safety Association (S2SA).

Nominations now closed for 2020. Please check back June 2021.

S2SA Safety Champion – Nomination Application 2020

With the arrival of warmer weather comes an increase in the chance of injuries as people spend more time outdoors and doing activities that can put them at risk. Although summer activities can be a lot of fun, we should always take proper precautions to avoid any injuries in ourselves and others.

Here are some simple summer safety tips to keep you safe:

Sun Safety

Exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV) can cause sunburn, premature skin aging, eye damage, and cancer. Be sure to check the UV Index — The higher the number, the greater the need to take precautions.

Inforgraphic from coohs.ca

Protect your skin

• Avoid unnecessary exposure to sun, especially between 11am – 4pm
• Seek shaded areas such as trees, buildings or canopies, or bring your own (e.g., an umbrella).
• Wear clothing that covers as much skin as possible and a wide-brimmed hat, as appropriate to the activity and weather.
• Use sunscreen labelled “broad spectrum” and “water resistant” with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30 on skin not covered by clothing. Apply sunscreen generously and reapply often.
• Avoid getting a sunburn and avoid intentional tanning.
• Outdoor workers should be provided access to water and encouraged to take breaks in areas where they can cool down.

Protect your eyes

• Wear sunglasses or eyeglasses with UV protective lenses.
• Wear a wide brimmed hat for added eye protection.

Thunder Storm Safety

When thunder roars, go indoors!

Knowing what to do when lightning is close is especially important for people who work outdoors. Pay attention to weather conditions and forecasts to allow time to plan and react appropriately.

Take Shelter in a Building or Vehicle

• The safest place to be during a thunderstorm is in a well-constructed building — fully enclosed with a roof, walls and floor with electrical wiring, plumbing, telephone line, or antennas to ground the lightning should the building be hit directly.
• The next best place for shelter is an enclosed metal car, truck or van but NOT a tractor, golf cart, topless or soft-top vehicle. Make sure the vehicle is not parked near trees or other tall objects that could fall over during a storm. Be aware of downed power lines that may be touching your car. You are safe inside the car, but you may receive a shock if you step outside.

If You Can’t Reach Shelter

• While there is no safe place to be outdoors during a thunderstorm, there are areas that might be less dangerous, and help reduce the risk of being struck by lightning.
• Stay away from things that are tall and other objects that conduct electricity (tractors, metal fences, lawnmowers, golf clubs).
• Do not become the prime target by being the highest object on the landscape. Take shelter in low-lying areas such as valleys or ditches but watch for flooding.
• If you are with a group of people in the open, spread out several metres apart from one another.
• If you get caught in a level field far from shelter, crouch down on the balls of your feet immediately, with feet together, place your arms around your knees and bend forward. Be the smallest target possible, and at the same time, minimize your contact with the ground. Don’t lie flat.

Bug Safety

Mosquitoes can cause a number of illnesses, including West Nile Virus. Protect yourself at work and play.

For workers, employers should provide education about the risk of mosquito-borne illness and supply mosquito repellant.

Prevent Bites

• Use insect repellant with DEET and wear long-sleeve shirts and long pants.
• Do not leave doors or windows propped open.
• Remove standing water where possible.
• Turn on air conditioning; mosquitoes prefer warm, damp and dark spaces.

As we start up our courses again, we are taking steps for safe classes to ensure the safety of students and facilitators.

These steps include:

• Class sizes have been reduced 9-11 max.
• Each participant will be seated at their own table and tables will be spaced 2 metres apart.
• Participants will be asked a series of COVID-19 exposure questions 1 day before the course and responses will be verified upon arrival for the training. In the event that you cannot attend the course based on your exposure, you will be rescheduled.
• Sanitizer is available and will be required upon entry to the training room.
• Coffee, tea, or snacks will not be provided.
• The training room will be cleaned and sanitized before and after each day of training. This includes sanitizing all hard surfaces such as tables, chairs, door handles, etc.
• All course materials will be emailed electronically prior to the course. If possible, please bring a tablet or computer with the files saved ready to use during the course. We will also have printouts prepared well in advance and handled with clean gloves, but electronic is recommended.
• Participants are expected to follow good hygiene practices.

An employee at my workplace tested positive. What information should I provide to other employees and customers?

Businesses are advised NOT to provide any personal health information about an employee to staff or customers. Public Health conducts a public health investigation to determine if someone who is confirmed to have COVID-19 was at work during the time they were infectious.

Public health officials work closely with people who have tested positive for COVID-19. This includes addressing their health concerns and determining who they may have had close, prolonged contact with when they were infectious. Public health officials will then directly contact every person deemed to be a close contact, defined as having had significant exposure to the positive COVID-19 individual when they were infectious. Public health makes contact as quickly as possible with all identified contacts.

If any additional measures need to be taken at your workplace, public health officials will call you directly to provide advice.

See our printable COVID-19 Positive Test in the Workplace for more information.

Helping your workers maintain their morale is key to keeping your organization going.

Morale is not about false positivity or false security. It’s about being clear, communicating effectively, and reassuring people where you can to maintain productivity as much as possible and reduce the distraction caused by fear. These are key tenets to great leadership that will help you to make sure morale is built AND sustained, both now and into the future.

Show Trust:

Checking in daily is good. It’s important to have conversations and meetings so that you know what your workers are doing, but too many meetings and calls will give people the sense that you are checking up on them. It also makes it hard for people to get their work done.

Be careful of creating restrictive rules about your need to “see” what people are doing versus giving them room to do the work. Shift your mindset to the idea that people want to do their best work.

Create Connection:

In the workplace, we often rely on physical proximity for creating connections. Working while maintaining social distancing provides fewer of those opportunities, and people will miss them greatly. As a leader, it’s crucial that you are intentional about creating ways for people to stay connected to each other, to you, and to the work overall.

Sharing information from your organization helps people know what is going on in the company. Include stories of success, humour, and empathy in your internal communications now too. You may want to call on your Gen Z and millennial employees for their ideas on how to stay connected virtually. Give them opportunities to lead where they can.

For example, S2SA has weekly virtual group meetings, to keep updated on what everyone is doing, as well as two group chat “channels”: One for work and one for sharing cute pictures of our pets while we work remotely! Even if your organization is not working remotely, virtual meetings and workplace chat channels can help fulfill the social aspects of work while working further apart.

Give Direction:

Given the distractions in the world, people may be struggling to stay focused. They may want to do good work but are feeling pulled toward the relentless news cycle. Be clear about your expectations.

Help employees understand what their priorities are. Either set priorities for them or ask them to send you what they see as their most important pieces of work. Agree on the priorities, being careful not to overwhelm, and set an overall time frame.

Share appreciation:

This may seem obvious, but employees often identify appreciation as lacking in organizations. This is a major contributor to poor employee engagement. Often, leaders do appreciate what their people are doing but fail to prioritize sharing it. Again, false positivity is not what is needed. Genuine, heartfelt appreciation for the work getting done and the contributions people are making is absolutely crucial right now.

Social distancing is key to protecting staff from COVID-19 and helping to limit the spread of the outbreak overall.

For the sales and service industry, remote working isn’t generally a possibility, so how do you enact social distancing in the workplace?

Here are some tips:

• Increase distance between work-stations,
• Encourage Employees to stay at home if sick,
• Stop handshaking as a greeting,
• Hold meetings via video conferencing or phone call (even within the office),
• Defer large meetings,
• Hold essential meetings outside in the open air if possible,
• Encourage proper hand-washing techniques,
• Promote good sneeze/cough hygiene,
• Provide hand sanitizer for all staff and workers,
• Have staff take lunch at their desks or outside (weather permitting) rather than in the lunch room,
• Clean and disinfect high touch surfaces regularly,
• Consider opening windows and adjusting air conditioning for more ventilation,
• Limit food handling and sharing of food in the workplace,
• Reconsider non-essential business travel,
• Consider if large gatherings can be rescheduled, staggered or cancelled.

These methods can be used to provide protection to all workers until the situation has stabilized.

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be stressful for people. Fear and anxiety about a disease can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions.

How COVID-19 spreads

COVID-19 spreads person-to-person between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

People are thought to be most contagious when they are most symptomatic (the sickest). Some spread might be possible before people show symptoms, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

It may also be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

As such, it is important to maintain proper hygiene.

Ways you can reduce or slow the spread of infections include:

• Wash your hands frequently.
• Stay home if you are sick (so you do not spread the illness to other people).
• Use a tissue, or cough and sneeze into the crook of your elbow, not your hand. Turn away from other people.
• Use single-use tissues. Dispose of the tissue immediately.
• Wash your hands after coughing, sneezing or using tissues.
• Regularly sanitize surfaces.
• Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth (viruses can transfer from your hands and into the body).
• Do not share cups, glasses, dishes or cutlery.

The most important way to reduce the spread of infections is hand washing – always wash regularly with soap and water.

How to properly wash your hands:

• Use water and wet your hands thoroughly.
• Use soap (1-3 mL) and lather very well.
• Lather with soap for at least 15 seconds – make sure you wash between your fingers, under your finger nails, front and backs of your hands, wrists, and forearms.
• Rinse thoroughly under clean, running water. Use a rubbing motion.
• Dry your hands with a paper towel or clean towel or use an air dryer.
• Turn off the taps/faucets with a paper towel (so you do not re-contaminate your hands).
• Protect your hands from touching dirty surfaces as you leave the bathroom. For example, use the same paper towel to open the door.

Workplaces can help by having an infection control plan which includes:

• Having an infection control plan.
• Providing clean handwashing facilities.
• Offering alcohol-based hand sanitizers when regular facilities are not available (or to people on the road).
• Providing boxes of tissues and encourage their use.
• Reminding staff to not share cups, glasses, dishes and cutlery. Be sure dishes are washed in soap and water after use.
• Removing magazines and papers from waiting areas or common rooms (such as tea rooms and kitchens).
• Considering cleaning a person’s workstation or other areas where they have been if a person has suspected or identified with an infection.
• Making sure ventilation systems are working properly.

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may be stressful for people. Fear and anxiety about a disease can be overwhelming and cause strong emotions.

Stress during an infectious disease outbreak can include:

• Fear and worry about your own health and the health of your loved ones.
• Changes in sleep or eating patterns.
• Difficulty sleeping or concentrating.
• Worsening of chronic health problems.
• Increased use of alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs.

People who may respond more strongly to the stress of a crisis include:

• People at higher risk for COVID-19.
• Children and teens.
• People who are helping with the response to COVID-19, like doctors and other health care providers, or first responders.
• People who have mental health conditions (including problems with substance use).

People with preexisting mental health conditions should continue with their treatment and be aware of new or worsening symptoms.

Things everyone can do for self-care:

• Take breaks from watching, reading, or listening to news stories, including social media. Hearing about the pandemic repeatedly can be upsetting.
• Take care of your body. Take deep breaths, stretch, or meditate. Try to eat healthy, well-balanced meals, exercise regularly, get plenty of sleep, and avoid alcohol and drugs.
• Make time to unwind. Try to do some other activities you enjoy.
• Connect with others. Talk with people you trust about your concerns and how you are feeling.

Encourage staff to call or visit their healthcare provider if stress gets in the way of daily activities.

To help reduce the spread of communicable diseases and viruses including COVID-19, workplaces should have an infection prevention and control plan. Workplaces should consider whether doing certain tasks puts employees at greater risk of exposure.

Strategies for Employers:

• Maintain Clean Facilities
  • Provide clean handwashing facilities and alcohol-based hand cleansers in multiple locations throughout the building (e.g., entrances, boardrooms, break rooms, etc.).
  • Post signage in the workplace, encouraging proper cough etiquette and hand hygiene (posters available here).
  • Regularly clean workstations and objects with disinfectants that are touched frequently, such as doorknobs, handles, elevator buttons, and railings. Workplaces are encouraged to increase the frequency of cleaning the workstation/worksite to two times per day.
  • Provide boxes of tissues and encouraging their use.
  • Remind staff to avoid sharing cups, glasses, dishes or cutlery, and ensuring cups/glasses/dishes/cutlery are thoroughly cleaned using soap and warm water after each use, or placed in the dishwasher for cleaning.
  • Remove magazines, papers, and other objects that cannot be cleaned from common rooms such as cafeterias, kitchens, break rooms, and waiting areas.
  • Ensure ventilation systems are working properly including opening windows as weather permits.
• Encourage employees to NOT go to work if they are feeling unwell (e.g., coughing, sneezing, fever, runny nose, etc.)
  • Review sick-leave policies to encourage employees to stay home when ill to reduce transmission to other coworkers and clients.
  • Review requirements for medical (sick) notes to reduce burden on the health care system and additional exposure to ill individuals.
• Use social distancing techniques to conduct as much business as possible
  • Encourage virtual meetings (telephone/video conferencing) to reduce prolonged, close contact between individuals.
  • Discontinue non-essential work-related travel outside of Manitoba.

More Resources:

Audio of Trillium Automotive Dealers Association (TADA) Webinar on COVID-19 – What you Need to Know From a Legal Perspective.

(When you click the link, enter your name, and email address & the Audio will pop open on your screen)

COVID-19: Preparing Employers for Novel Coronavirus

Managing the coronavirus (COVID-19) for employers

Emergency Preparedness

Make sure everyone in your home knows what to do in an emergency situation and that you have an emergency kit to sustain your family for at least 72 hours.

Preventing the Spread of Illness

With everyone home for the Holidays, illnesses can easily spread through your family.

Reduce the risks by washing your hands frequently, using a tissue or coughing and sneezing into your arm, cleaning and sanitizing children’s play surfaces and toys, avoiding touching your eyes, nose or mouth, and avoiding sharing cups, glasses, dishes or cutlery.

Fireplace Safety

There’s nothing quite as cozy as a fireplace! Stay cozy and safe by keeping fireplace safety in mind.

Always use a screen in front of the fireplace to protect against flying sparks and don’t leave the fire unattended. Never use gasoline or any other flammable liquids to start a fire, use only small quantities of seasoned and dried wood and remove ashes regularly.

Space Heater Safety

Give space heaters space!

If you are using space heaters, remember to keep them at least one metre away from anything that can burn such as curtains, upholstery or holiday decorations. Turn off the space heater before going out or going to bed.

Carbon Monoxide Detector

Make sure you have working carbon monoxide alarms. Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odourless, dangerous gas. Replace any carbon monoxide alarms over seven years old.

You can help prevent carbon monoxide with good maintenance of fuel-burning appliances.

It comes from from car exhaust, furnaces, water heaters, fireplaces, and appliances or equipment that burn solid (wood, charcoal), liquid (gasoline, oil) or gaseous (propane, natural gas) fuels.

If your detector sounds and you have an obvious source of carbon monoxide, evacuate the house, including pets. If anyone is suffering from flulike symptoms, call 911. You can also remove or turn off the carbon monoxide source and ventilate the house. Reset the alarm and re-occupy the house only after the alarm ceases.

Cold Weather Safety

Manitoba’s low temperatures call for planning ahead and dressing for the weather.

Dress in layers, with a wind-resistant outer layer, wear a hat, mittens or insulated gloves, and a scarf, neck-warmer or facemask. Wear warm and waterproof footwear.

When it is very cold, or when the wind chill is significant, cover as much exposed skin as possible. Your body’s extremities, such as the ears, nose, fingers and toes lose heat the fastest.