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City manager Scott Hildebrand (left) and occupational safety and health co-ordinator Greg Brown show off the North American Occupational Safety and Health award the city won for its Mission Zero safety campaign.
(SUBMITTED PHOTO)
The City of Brandon’s efforts to create a "culture of safety" in the workplace have been rewarded with a North American Occupational Safety and Health award.
For its launch of an innovative safety campaign called "Mission Zero — Together We Can Achieve Excellence in Safety," the city received an "Industry Leader" nod at a NAOSH award ceremony held earlier this month in Winnipeg.
The awards are presented annually to recognize the safety and prevention efforts of Manitoba workplaces.
Mission Zero is a multi-year workplace safety campaign, with its overarching goal being the reduction of injuries within the workplace, said Greg Brown, the citys’s occupational safety and health co-ordinator.
"Mission Zero is a safety campaign for city employees with the intent of raising safety awareness on and off the job," he said.
"In many cases, the impact of an injury has as much, if not more, of an impact on one’s personal life as it does in the workplace."
Through an interactive process, the Mission Zero campaign goals were rolled out to the city’s staff of several hundred over the summer of 2012. The rollout was highlighted by a personal video message from city manager Scott Hildebrand, which was shown to employees.
"Throughout my professional life, safety has always been a priority to me," Hildebrand said. "I’ve seen and experienced first-hand what can be accomplished when a strong safety culture is fostered across an organization.
"Making a conscious decision to elevate the importance of safety across the City of Brandon workplace is the right thing to do and something I am proud to support."
Hildebrand noted that a safety and health leadership charter, signed by each of the city’s department directors, now hangs in all city facilities to stress the importance of workplace safety each and every day.
Other highlights in the first few months of the campaign have been the provision of supervisor training in a number of key areas and a safety communication/ poster campaign targeted at staff.
Since the campaign was launched across the organization this past May, the city has already seen a reduction in the number of year-to-date workplace injuries when compared to previous years.
» Submitted
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition October 3, 2012
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