NOTL Hydro reached an important milestone this month. We have now gone over 250,000 hours without a lost time incident. Our last lost time incident was in 2013 so this achievement has been over 8 years in the making.
Safety is incredibly important at NOTL Hydro. The following are some of the activities we undertake to continually promote safety:
- We have a safety consultant who works for us on a part-time basis. This individual is a full-time safety professional and they make sure we are aware of the latest rules and regulations, go over recent incidents in Ontario or elsewhere so that we can learn from them, teach our staff best practices and ensure safety is kept top of mind. The safety consultant also works with other electric utilities so can pass on best practices.
- Operations staff meet around once a month to review safety matters. These meetings last several hours and are a mix of updates of latest safety developments, reviews of any incidents and safety lessons. These meetings are often part of a day devoted to training and inspections. Office staff also have safety meetings but on a less regular basis.
- Safety is part of every day’s activity. Tools and vehicles are inspected each day prior to use and when they are returned at the end of the day. No job is started before a thorough, and documented, review of the nature of the job, the potential hazards and the responsibility of each person on the job. This documentation is reviewed by their supervisor to ensure ongoing focus.
- We are one of 15 members of an industry organization, CHEC, that employs a full-time operations consultant for whom safety is his biggest responsibility. This individual also keeps us up-to-date on the latest safety developments and ensures safety is kept top of mind.
- Finally, NOTL Hydro does sometimes seek awards for our safety initiatives. Our last such award was the ZeroQuest Sustainability award which was received in September 2012 and was the culmination of over 8 years of effort. We will also be seeking recognition of our 250,000 hours from the Infrastructure Health & Safety Association (IHSA).
We are proud that we have reached 250,000 hours without a lost time incident. And not because we get an award, or because we get to pat ourselves on the back or because we have avoided the costs of an incident. We are proud because our staff have gone a long time without any serious injury and are acting responsibly to reduce the risks of an incident.