Definitions Flashcards
Accident
A dated term for an event that has led to some degree of harm.
The HRAC process asks us to think more broadly than just in terms of injury events. The term incident is most often used to mean any undesired event that leads to or could have led to harm to workers. This includes injury events as well as near miss events
Acoustic trauma
Negative health effects caused by short, intense exposure to noise, usually of high frequency.
Exposure to this hazard can lead to a series of short- and long-term health effects. Short-term effects include a full sensation in the ears, sharp pain around the ear, nausea, or dizziness. Longer-term effects can include headaches, fatigue, anxiety, and hypersensitivity to sound.
Act
An act is a federal, provincial, or territorial law that sets out the broad legal framework around OHS in each jurisdiction. This legislation is passed by the legislature that has the authority to regulate work in the jurisdiction.
Administrative controls
A form of hazard control that entails changes to work process, policies, training, or rules designed to reduce exposure to hazards.
For example, policies restricting the time workers spend in contact with a chemical hazard, “no-go” zones that restrict workers’ movements in certain locations, mandatory training sessions, permit systems to control access to equipment or spaces, changes to schedules to prevent excessive shift work, or working-alone procedures that require regular check-in are all administrative controls. Administrative controls do not actually control a hazard. Rather, they attempt (via rules and processes) to limit workers’ exposure to the hazard.
Alcohol testing
Measuring the amount of alcohol in a worker’s breath or blood to determine impairment.
There is some (but weak) evidence that workers who work while under the influence of alcohol are at greater risk of being involved in an incident or being injured. The evidence that alcohol testing (e.g., measuring the amount of alcohol in a worker’s breath or blood) reduces the incidence of errors is strongest in the transportation and construction industries. This likely reflects the nature of the hazards in those industries.
Area monitoring
Measuring the level of a hazard in a geographic space.
Less effective control for chemical hazards
Some workplaces provide special facilities (e.g., showers, lunch rooms) to minimize workers’ exposure to chemicals. Some organizations will also undertake extensive medical and environmental monitoring and record keeping.
Arises out of employment
Part of the arises-and-occurs test of injury compensability that assesses whether or not an injury was caused by the nature, conditions, or obligations of employment.
That is to say, injuries arise from employment when they are caused by an employment hazard.
Arises-and-occurs test
A test used by a workers’ compensation board to assess whether an injury claim is compensable. To meet this test, an injury must arise from and occur during the course of a worker’s employment.
It is easier for workers with acute physical injuries to show that this is the case than it is for workers who have developed an occupational disease. This is because occupational diseases often take years to manifest themselves and the cause of the disease may be unclear. Not surprisingly, then, the majority of accepted workers’ compensation claims are for acute physical injuries.
Arises out of employment is a part of this test
Balance of probabilities test
Used in determining whether or not an injury occurred as a result of work
A standard of proof wherein a proposition is deemed to be true if is it more likely to be true than not based upon the evidence at hand.
Acute physical injuries in the workplace with clear causal mechanisms are almost always accepted. When the facts of a claim are ambiguous, WCBs use the balance of probabilities test to assess compensability (i.e., is it more likely than not that the injury arose from and occurred in the course of employment).
Behaviour-based safety
An approach to OHS that views the workplace as a venue of measurable behaviour that can be shaped via feedback to prevent injuries.
Training is often said to be an effective means of reducing the incidence of workplace injury. For example, training workers to work safely is a key component of behaviour-based safety (BBS), a popular approach to OHS among employers. BBS
As its name implies, BBS draws heavily on a behaviourist view of learning and focuses on modifying worker behaviour via training-reinforced positive and negative feedback. For example, safety metrics (e.g., number of days without a time-loss injury) may be publically posted and linked to rewards (e.g., cash bonuses or workplace events such as free pizza lunches). Such rewards certainly can shape worker behaviour.
Behaviourism
A learning theory that asserts that attaching rewards and punishments to specific worker actions can shape how workers behave.
In effect, workers can be conditioned to act in desired ways via positive and negative reinforcement.
Biological hazards
Workplace hazards potentially giving rise to injuries caused by organisms—such as bacteria, molds, funguses—or the products of organisms that harm human health.
There are three types of organisms that give rise to biological hazards:
Bacteria
Viruses
Fungi
Insect stings and bites, poisonous plants and animals, and allergens are also biological hazards. Biological hazards can enter our bodies via respiration, skin absorption, ingestion, and skin penetration and can cause both acute and chronic health effects
Bona fide occupational requirement
A rule or requirement necessary for the proper performance of a job, which can prevail even if it causes otherwise prohibited discrimination.
For example, it is unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire a worker because the worker is blind. Yet, if an employer were hiring a pizza delivery driver, requiring the worker to hold a valid driver’s licence (which a blind worker cannot acquire) would be a bona fide occupational requirement. This requirement is permissible because holding a driver’s licence is rationally connected to the job and reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of a legitimate work-related purpose.
Ontario suggests a three-part test to determine if drug and alcohol testing is a BFOR:
the standard or test has been adopted for a purpose that is rationally connected to the performance of the job
the particular standard or test has been adopted in an honest and good faith belief that it was necessary to the fulfillment of that legitimate work-related purpose
the standard or test is reasonably necessary to accomplish that legitimate work-related purpose (i.e., it is impossible to accommodate individual employees sharing the characteristics of the claimant without imposing undue hardship upon the employer)
But for standard
A test used in cases where it is difficult to assess whether an injury arises and occurs from work that asks whether an injury would have arisen and occurred in the absence of work.
In cases where it is very hard to sort out whether an injury is caused by work, WCBs will often use the but for standard. If the injury would not have occurred but for the work, the injury is deemed to have arose and occurred. This means the work does not have to be the sole, predominant, or major cause of an injury, but work must be necessary for the injury to have occurred.
Capital accumulation process
The way in which goods and services are produced in a capitalist economy.
On the one hand, government must facilitate the capital accumulation process—that is, it must act in ways that allow employers to produce goods and services in a profitable manner and thereby encourage private investment. Failing to do so may result in an economic downturn, for which the government may well be held responsible.
On the other hand, government must maintain its own legitimacy with voters (so it gets re-elected). It must also maintain the legitimacy of the existing capitalist economic system.
Capitalism
An economic system wherein the means of production are mostly owned by private individuals, the distribution of goods mostly occurs through market mechanisms, and employers face significant pressure to maximize profitability.
A recurring issue for governments in such economies is that workers (who comprise the majority of the electorate) are often negatively affected by the operation of the system. We see this in the form of low pay, poor working conditions, and the spectre of workplace injury and death. These effects can cause a loss of confidence in a particular government or, more broadly, in capitalist social formation.
Careless worker myth
The notion that workers are accident-prone, careless, or even reckless in the execution of their duties and that these characteristics are the primary cause of workplace injuries.
A good example of the contested nature of workplace injuries and the importance of distinguishing root and proximate cause is the careless worker myth. The idea that workers are accident-prone, careless, or even reckless in the execution of their duties and thus cause their own injuries has wide currency.
While workers’ behaviour often features in explanations of the proximate cause of an injury (e.g., “the worker fell off of the roof”), it is useful to probe the root cause of injury. Who sent the worker onto the roof and why? Why wasn’t the worker given fall protection equipment? Most injuries are ultimately caused by unsafe working conditions, and working conditions are under the control of employers, not workers.
Catastrophic stressors
A subset of acute stress, but differing in their intensity, threatening life, safety, or property.
One of the four types of stressors
Robbery and physical assault are examples of catastrophic stressors.
Ceiling exposure value (CEV)
The concentration of a substance that should never be exceeded in a workplace.
one of the three types of occupational exposure limits (OELs)
Chemical hazards
Workplace hazards potentially giving rise to injuries caused by a chemical substance that harms human tissue or interferes with normal physiological functioning.
Some chemicals irritate our tissue while others poison our systems or organs. Chemicals can asphyxiate us or negatively affect the functioning of our central nervous systems. Chemicals can also cause our immune systems to overreact, change our DNA, cause cancer, or damage a fetus.
There are four routes of entry by which chemicals can get into a worker’s body, the most common being through respiration (i.e., breathing in contaminated air) and absorption through the skin. Chemicals can also enter our bodies through ingestion (i.e., we can eat them—usually accidentally) and through cuts in our skin.
Chemical hazards have varying levels of toxicity (i.e., ability to cause injury).
Chronic stressors
Stressors that persist over a sustained period of time and include job insecurity, work overload, or lack of control.
One of four types of stressors
Chronic toxicity
Harm caused by exposure to a substance that manifests itself over a longer period of time.
The time between exposure to a chemical hazard and the development of symptoms from that exposure is called the latency period
Circadian rhythms
The daily (24-hour) cycles our body follows to ensure high activity during the day and low activity at night.
The primary concern about shift work is its potential to disrupt a worker’s circadian rhythms.
Sleeping and waking, eating, adrenalin, body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and many other bodily functions are regulated by circadian rhythms. When work occurs outside of that daily rhythm, it places strain on the body as it is forced to alter the cycle. A second concern is that shift work is associated with behaviour contributing to poorer health, including smoking, poor diet, and increased alcohol consumption. Shift work also disrupts family and social activities. This disruption adds stress and reduces the support that workers can draw upon to manage stress.
The Meredith principles underlying workers’ compensation remain the basis for workers’ compensation in Canada:
No fault: How the injury occurred is irrelevant. Compensation is paid on a no-fault basis and workers cannot sue their employer.
Accident fund: The WCB maintains an accident fund to guarantee the availability of benefits over time.
Collective liability: All employers pay premiums and thereby share the cost of injuries collectively.
Independent administration: The WCB—which operates independently of employers, workers, and the state—administers the workers’ compensation system.
Exclusivity: The WCB is the only provider of workers’ compensation. This differs from arrangements in some US states where multiple private insurers offer compensation. The WCB is also the final arbiter of all claims.
Collective liability
One of the Meredith principles underlying workers’ compensation, stating that the cost of injury is shared among all employers in an industry.
Complaint-driven enforcement
A policy wherein workplace inspections are triggered by individual complaints or in response to incidents (i.e., a serious injury or fatality).
Complaint-based investigations may at times be supplemented by targeted inspections of specific industries (e.g., residential construction) or working situations (e.g., employers of migrant workers). Complaint-based enforcement has been adopted due to the limited resources allocated to OHS inspections relative to the number of employers in the jurisdiction.
Consequence
The severity of injury/ill health that will result from an incident.
Part of risk assessment calculation
Control along the path
An approach to hazard control that addresses the hazard at some point between its source and when workers encounter the hazard.
Some types of engineering controls (e.g., machine guards, local ventilation) control the hazard along the path.
Part of the location of the control approach
Control at the source
An approach to hazard control that prevents the hazard from entering the workplace via elimination, substitution, or some type of engineering controls.
Part of the location of the control approach
Control at the worker
An approach to hazard control that controls the hazard only after it reaches the worker.
These controls are designed to prevent or reduce the consequences of the hazard, rather than control the hazard itself. PPE and administrative controls are both examples of control at the worker because they both require that the burden of the control be placed almost exclusively upon the worker.
Part of the location of the control approach
Cost-benefit approach
An approach to injury prevention that compares the cost of an injury with the cost of injury prevention.
Since perfect safety is unattainable, employers often adopt a cost-benefit approach to safety: safety should only be improved when it costs less to prevent the injury than the injury itself costs. This isn’t to suggest that employers actively wish to see their workers injured or don’t take safety seriously. Rather, it highlights that employers and managers face structural pressures (e.g., the profit imperative of capitalism) and that these pressures shape how they behave and, indeed, how they view issues like workplace safety.
Dermatitis
Irritation of the skin that often begins with a rash and can lead to severe itching, burning, flaking, cracking, blistering, and bleeding.
Many food service workers cope with a chronic rash on their hands. This dermatitis is caused by exposures to chemical substances such as cleaners and food products as well as by frequent handwashing—all of which can irritate a worker’s skin. Workers can develop severe itching, burning, flaking, cracking, blistering, and bleeding of their hands. Over time, repeated exposures to chemical substances can also make workers allergic to those chemicals. Allergic reactions mean workers can develop symptoms on other parts of the body. There are over 1000 workers’ compensation claims for dermatitis in Ontario alone each year.
Disability
The condition of being unable to perform a function or task as a consequence of a physical or mental impairment
That definition seems pretty straightforward. But definitions are social constructions. In this case, being unable to perform a function is only meaningful if performing the function is an expectation of a situation. What this means is that the existence of impairment (i.e., a cognitive or physical difference) does not cause a disability. Rather, it is the nature of the tasks in the workplace that turn impairment into a disability.
Disability management
A set of employer practices designed to prevent or reduce workplace disability and help workers to recover normal functioning as quickly and to the maximum degree possible.
Return to work programs are part of the broader field of disability management.
Three interrelated aspects of disability management
Prevention: Employers may seek to prevent injuries and illnesses that give rise to disabilities through injury prevention efforts as well as employee assistance and wellness programs.
Accommodation: Workers who have disabilities may require accommodation. This may include assistive technologies and modifications to work, work processes, and the workplace.
Recovery: Some disabilities are temporary in nature. Sick leave, modified work, disability benefits (including workers’ compensation), and return to work programs can assist workers during the period of time required for them to recover.
Domino theory
An accident analysis model premised on five factors (background, personal defects, unsafe acts and conditions, incident, and injury), the elimination of any one resulting in the prevention of an incident.
A model to help investigators get to root cause
Each domino represents factors reaching back from an incident. The first (closest) domino is labelled Injury, followed by Incident, Unsafe Acts and Conditions, Personal Defects (e.g., equipment failure, personal factors), and finally Background (e.g., lack of management control). The theory contends that injury results from failure at all five levels. If any of the failures does not happen (i.e., one of the dominoes is removed from the chain), an injury will not occur. For example, if a worker is taught to work safely, an injury might be prevented even though failures in background decisions still occurred.
Drug testing
Determining the presence (or absence) of a drug or its metabolic residue in a worker’s body, typically by testing a sample of a worker’s saliva, blood, urine, or hair.
To the surprise of many, there is little evidence that drug use is associated with a heightened risk of workplace injury. This may explain the more ambiguous outcomes of research into the effect of drug testing on workplace injuries. While there is some evidence that pre-employment drug testing is associated with a lower incidence of injury, there is little credible evidence that randomly testing workers affects injury rates.
Human rights legislation limits the use of alcohol and drug testing in the workplace, although there are significant differences between jurisdictions
Due diligence
Standard of conduct wherein employers take every reasonable precaution to ensure safety.
It is assessed using a three-part test:
Foreseeability: Reasonable employers are expected to know about the hazards of their business. Injuries that arise from events that other operators in the industry expect might occur are foreseeable events.
Preventability: Reasonable employers are expected to take steps to prevent injury. The normal steps include identifying hazards, preparing and enforcing safe working procedures, training and monitoring worker safety, and ensuring compliance with safety procedures. Injuries that arise because an employer did not take these steps are preventable injuries.
Control: Reasonable employers are expected to take action on hazards that they can control. Injuries that arise from such hazards suggest the employer failed to control these hazards.
Duration
The length of time a worker is exposed to a phenomenon.
One of the three characteristics of noise affect whether it becomes a hazard
Even short-term exposure can cause damage, especially if the noise is sudden and at a high frequency.
Duty to accommodate
Employers’ legal obligation to alter work, work practices, or the workplace to the point of undue hardship in order to allow workers with disabilities to perform meaningful work.
Elimination
A form of hazard control that removes the hazard from the worksite.
For example, relocating work performed at a height to ground level eliminates the risk of falling. This control is most easily implemented at the design stage, thereby preventing the hazard from entering the workplace.
Emergency
A sudden event that poses a hazard to workers’ health and safety and requires immediate action.
Obvious examples include weather or transportation events such as the 2013 flood in Calgary, Alberta, or the tanker-car explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Fortunately, most emergencies are of a much smaller scale. The release of hazardous gases at the Burnaby mushroom farm is an example. The workers had no warning that they would be exposed to a powerful chemical hazard in a confined space, and the exposure rapidly incapacitated, injured, and killed them. While preventing such events is ideal, emergency plans can significantly mitigate the harm caused by emergencies.
Emotional labour
Work requiring workers to regulate their emotions to meet organizationally defined rules and to display the required emotions to customers.
In other words, workers engage in emotional labour when they are asked to display an emotion—empathy, happiness, friendliness— that they may not actually feel. Emotional labour is a key part of work in many occupations involving clients, patients, or customers and is required of a wide variety of workers, including nurses and doctors, store clerks, restaurant/bar servers, airline attendants, and teachers
Employee assistance program (EAP)
Employer-funded access to short-term psychological counselling to help employees to cope with personal problems.
These programs normally provide access to short-term psychological counselling to help employees to cope with personal problems. The underlying logic of EAPs is that personal issues can affect work performance and, if untreated, can sometimes become more profound.
Employment Strain Model (ESM)
A holistic model of how employment uncertainty, effort, and support affect precarious workers’ health.
ESM looks at the employment relationship in its entirety to understand how workers’ health is affected by engaging in precarious work. The model suggests that the strain of being uncertain about employment combined with the stress of having to make extra effort to maintain and attain work are the cause of the worsened health outcomes.
Engineering controls
are modifications to the workplace, equipment, materials, or work processes that reduce workers’ exposure to hazards.
For example, installing guards on machinery, building guard rails, installing ventilation systems, or purchasing ergonomically designed workstations all isolate workers from hazards, but they do not eliminate the hazard. These controls can be incomplete, become inoperative due to lack of maintenance, or be overridden and therefore are less effective than elimination or substitution.
Episodic stressors
Events similar to acute stressors, but occurring more frequently, having a longer duration, and often of lower intensity
One of the four types of stressors
Ergonomic hazards
Workplace hazards potentially giving rise to injuries caused by the interaction of work design and the human body.
Ergonomics
It is a broad-based approach to OHS that considers how the design of work affects the human body and its health. Ideally, ergonomics starts with job design. Job design comprises the decisions employers make about what tasks will be performed by workers and how that work will be performed.
Exit/Voice/Patience/Neglect
A typology of possible worker responses to occupational health and safety issues.
Exit: The worker decides to get away from the undesired situation, either by quitting the employer or transferring to another location or job within the same employer.
Voice: The worker decides to speak up in an attempt to change the situation. Voice can take a number of forms, including attempting to repair the situation directly, lodging a complaint, filing a grievance or, less constructively, retaliating with their own inappropriate behaviour.
Patience: The worker decides to do nothing in the hopes that the situation will eventually improve. Workers adopt a patience approach when their loyalty to the organization or the cost of exiting is greater than the price of experiencing the negative situation.
Neglect: The worker does nothing, based on the belief that the situation will not change or might grow worse. The worker might try to avoid the source of the situation but will generally take no action to change the situation. Workers choose this option when the costs of exiting are too high and their relationship to the organization is sufficiently damaged to prevent either voice or patience.
Experience rating
A system of adjusting an employer’s workers’ compensation premiums based upon the employer’s claims record
Manitoba employers can receive reductions of about 40% in their premiums if they have low claims costs compared to other employers. Employers with high costs can see their premiums increased by up to 200%. This has created a significant incentive for employers to minimize the cost of the workers’ compensation claims filed by their workers.
Exposure
How often or regularly workers come in contact with the hazard.
Part of risk assessment
Fatigue
The state of feeling tired, weary, or sleepy caused by insufficient sleep, prolonged mental or physical work, or extended periods of stress or anxiety.
Acute, or short-term, fatigue can be caused by failure to get adequate sleep in the period before a work shift and is resolved quickly through appropriate sleep. Chronic fatigue can be the result of a prolonged period of sleep deficit and may require more involved treatment. Chronic fatigue syndrome is an ongoing, severe feeling of tiredness not relieved by sleep. The causes of chronic fatigue syndrome are unknown.
Flexible work arrangements
Altering the normal hours of work in order to accommodate the needs of workers.
Some wellness initiatives that do actually modify the workplace are things like flexible work arrangements, such as compressed workweeks. In a compressed workweek, a worker puts in slightly longer hours but fewer days per week. Some workplaces will also allow job sharing, wherein two workers share a single position with each worker working some portion of the full-time job. Another option is telecommuting, wherein workers perform work away from the office (e.g., at home). This option can allow workers to better balance otherwise conflicting work and home responsibilities.
Frequency
The vibration of the medium through which energy moves
One of the three characteristics of noise that affects whether it becomes a hazard
We measure frequency in Hertz (Hz) (i.e., the number of vibrations per second). We experience sound frequency as the pitch of noise. Fast vibration yields a higher-pitched noise than slow vibration. We can normally hear sounds with frequencies between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz. Sounds extending beyond the low and high end of our hearing range are not registered by our brains (i.e., we cannot hear them), but they can still harm our ears.
Fungi
Plants that lack chlorophyll, such as mushrooms, yeast, and mould.
Many fungi contain toxin or produce toxic substances. For example, stachybotrys chartarum (black mould) produces toxins called mycotoxins that cause nausea, fatigue, respiratory and skin problems, and organ damage when the toxic spores are inhaled.
Gaming
Behaviour whereby an employer maximizes the return it receives from the experience-rating system by means other than improving safety.
Gaming may include suppressing claims as well as disputing worker claims, thereby undermining the no-fault basis of workers’ compensation.
Hand-arm vibration
A form of segmental vibration affecting a worker’s hands and arms, often caused by gripping power tools.
Hand-arm vibration syndrome (sometimes called Raynaud’s phenomenon or “white finger”) is caused by restriction of blood and oxygen supply to fingers and hands, which causes damage to blood vessels and nervous systems.
Hazard assessment
The process of determining which of identified hazards need to be addressed most urgently.
Second step of HRAC process
Hazard control
Implementing corrective measures to eliminate or mitigate the effect of a hazard.
Third step of HRAC process
Hazard recognition
The systematic act of identifying all hazards present, or potentially present, in a workplace.
First step of HRAC process
Hazard recognition, assessment, and control (HRAC)
The process of identifying, prioritizing, and eliminating or mitigating workplace hazards.
The key to preventing workplace injuries and fatalities is to identify hazards and control them. In the case of Andrew James, the process of Hazard Recognition, Assessment, and Control (HRAC) would have identified the risks posed by the trailer’s inadequately latched gate, the unsafe unloading practices, the absence of an emergency plan, and other issues. It might also have raised questions about the adequacy of the training provided to James, the legality of his employment, and the OHS complexity of mobile workplaces—workplaces where the hazards are ever-changing.
Impairment
A cognitive or physical difference that, in a specific context, may give rise to a disability.
That the existence of impairment (i.e., a cognitive or physical difference) does not cause a disability. Rather, it is the nature of the tasks in the workplace that turn impairment into a disability.
Incident
Any undesired event that leads to or could have led to harm to workers.
The term incident is most often used to mean any undesired event that leads to or could have led to harm to workers. This includes injury events as well as near miss events (i.e., where the event did not lead to harm but only because of happenstance or luck). When talking about incidents, we also need to be mindful that incidents can include specific, time-bounded events (e.g., a slippery floor) as well as general conditions or the presence of something harmful (e.g., long-term exposure to a carcinogen).
Incident investigation
The process of determining what caused an incident and identifying ways of preventing its recurrence.
Not conducting the investigation in a careful and thorough manner can undermine the results and create the risk of a repeat incident. Any incident where significant injury occurs should be thoroughly investigated, but there is value in investigating minor injury and near miss events as well, as they can reveal important insights that might prevent a future injury.
Sometimes, incident investigations are used to place blame (usually on the worker) for the events that transpired in the workplace. This misuse of an investigation often occurs when investigators become too focused on the proximate (i.e., immediate) cause(s) of the incident and do not seek out root causes
Incident report
A written document outlining the findings of an incident investigation, including recommendations for preventing future incidents.
The incident report will be the permanent record of the incident and its causes and thus should clearly outline what happened and why it happened. It may even have future legal ramifications, as its recommendations may be used by government inspectors to determine if an employer met the standard of due diligence in controlling hazards after the incident.
Incident reports can take different forms depending on context, organization, and situation. All incident reports should include the following elements:
Who performed the investigation
Details of the incident, including date, time, persons involved, outcomes
Details of the investigation and how it was conducted, timelines, etc.
An outline of the factors that led up to the incident
Clear identification of the root causes of the incident
Specific recommendations designed to prevent future incidents
Industry safety associations (ISA)
Bodies formed by employers in an industry to deliver safety services and advocate on behalf of the employers on safety issues.
ISAs have become more involved in establishing regulatory standards and delivering training and education to workers. In some jurisdictions, ISAs have been authorized to conduct workplace safety audits to determine eligibility for safety incentives, such as workers’ compensation premium reductions.
Instructional design
The process of systematically developing training to meet particular goals and objectives.
The process begins by conducting a needs assessment to determine what kind of training is required to meet organizational goals. Organizational goals for health and safety training often include meeting legislative requirements or seeking to reduce injury rates, enhancing (or remediating!) the organization’s reputation for safety, or qualifying for workers’ compensation premium rebates. Employers seek to meet these goals by changing workers’ knowledge, skills, or behaviours via training.
Internal responsibility system (IRS)
System of shared responsibility for occupational health and safety.
Canadian OHS is based upon the internal responsibility system (IRS)
The IRS assumes that workers and employers have a shared responsibility for workplace health and safety. Employers are obligated to take steps to ensure that workplaces are as safe as reasonably practicable. Employers are also required to advise workers of hazards and to require workers to use mandated safety equipment. The decision by governments to give employers the power to determine how to address workplace hazards bolsters employers’ broader management rights to control and direct work.
Ionizing radiation
Radiation with enough strength to remove electrons from a molecule as it passes through, such as x-rays, gamma rays, alpha particles, and neutrons.
Ionizing radiation can occur naturally at low levels from a variety of sources but is uncommon in workplaces. It is most often found in medical, nuclear, and research facilities. When ionizing radiation is present in a workplace, it poses a significant safety hazard. Both short exposures to high levels of radiation and long-term exposure to lower levels have serious health consequences.
Long-term, lower-level exposure is also a concern as it, too, can lead to increased risk of cancer.
Job Demands-Control Model
A model of workplace stress analyzing the interaction of job demands with job control.
Karasek developed a model that analyzed the interaction of job demands with job control. He created a matrix that included four types of work
Low-strain and passive jobs are associated with low stress, although passive jobs can lead to low motivation and dissatisfaction. The important boxes are active jobs, associated with high job demands but where workers possess a high degree of decision latitude (i.e., control) in the work, and high-strain jobs, which contain high demand but little job control.
Job design
Decisions employers make about what tasks will be performed by workers and how that work will be performed.
Job design includes establishing the physical dimensions of work. This includes the size and location of the workspace, and what furniture, tools, and equipment will be used, as well as the temperature or lighting of the workspace. Job design also determines the nature of the tasks, including their complexity, pace, and duration and how individual tasks and jobs relate to one another. Finally, job design often includes making decisions and assumptions about the characteristics of the workers who will perform the work, including their height, weight, sex, and other physical and mental abilities.
Joint health and safety committees (JHSCs)
Committees comprising both worker and management representatives responsible for enhancing workplace health and safety.
JHSCs comprise employer and worker representatives who regularly meet to discuss health and safety issues. The “logic” of these committees is that they marry the job-specific knowledge of workers with the broader perspective of managers to identify and resolve OHS issues.
The legislative requirements for JHSCs vary by jurisdiction and organization size.
How workers behave on JHSCs can influence the effectiveness of worker participation.
Jurisdiction
Geographic district or industry sector which is subject to the authority of the federal Parliament or a provincial or territorial legislature.
The distribution of powers under the Canadian constitution means Canada has 14 jurisdictions (federal, 10 provincial, and 3 territorial) when it comes to health and safety laws.
This sounds complicated, but in practice most employers and workers are covered by the OHS law of the province or territory in which they work. For example, approximately 90% of workers and employers in Alberta are subject to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Learning theories
Conceptual frameworks that describe how learners absorb, process, and retain information.
Over time, educational theorists have identified several different approaches to training. These learning theories are conceptual frameworks that describe how learners absorb, process, and retain information. These descriptions of learning often contain prescriptions about how to teach. Two learning theories that are broadly used to structure OHS training are behaviourism and social cognition.
