Supervisors, workers and employers in any industry in B.C. may benefit from a new WorkSafeBC online safety training course that can be accessed any time, free of charge.
The
Supervising for Safety course provides information and resources on supervision and the key role it plays in providing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace.
"It's all about getting occupational health and safety resources to the customer in ways that meet their needs," says Gordon Thorne, WorkSafeBC manager of safety videos and publications, who helped build the course. "Making the course available on its own website and on Facebook increases access by bringing the classroom experience to the participant."
The program originated with an industry group of labour, business and WorkSafeBC officers concerned with injury and disease prevention. Supervisors in industry may lack a full understanding of their role and responsibilities relating to the safety of their workers, including the requirement to provide information, instruction, training, supervision, verification of knowledge, and correction of workplace hazards.
"We built the program because there wasn't much out there for supervisors," says Mike Tasker, a WorkSafeBC occupational safety officer based in Prince George, and one of the program's originators. "So we put together the course based on our experience as supervisors, and best practices for what works in safety management."
Organized into nine modules, the course can take seven to eight hours to complete and also allows you to select the topics you want to explore and proceed at your own pace. It contains over 60 video clips and templates of forms, checklists and other WorkSafeBC safety resources to download.
The course can be accessed at
SupervisingforSafety.com or on
Facebook by searching for "Supervising for Safety."
WorkSafeBC is an independent provincial statutory agency
