The State of Safety in Canada Survey, 2024 - Todd Smith - Threads of Life

Tune in to hear Todd Smith discuss a national State of Safety survey conducted on behalf of Threads of Life as well as Todd’s personal workplace tragedy story

Transcript

Perley Brewer (Guest)   1:04
 
 Welcome to today's podcast.
 My name is Pearlie Brewer and I will be your host.
 Today's podcast guest is Todd Smith.
 Todd is going to share with us not only his personal connection to health and safety, but also the results of the state of safety survey that was completed earlier this year by the threads of Life organization.
 Welcome, Todd, and thank you very much for agreeing to be with us today.
Todd Smith   1:29
 Thanks pearlie don't.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   1:31
 Todd, let's get started by getting you to tell us about yourself and about your background and about what connected you originally to the threads of life organization.
Todd Smith   1:40
 Sure, absolutely.
 So I have spent pretty much my entire career in the environmental waste management business.
 We deal with a lot of various chemistries, hazardous materials.
 It's it's a fairly dangerous type of business, so health and safety is obviously a very, very big part of that.
 And back in 1996, I decided that I also wanted just for my own personal understanding.
 I took a health and safety certificate program which was a two year program completed in 1998.
 Umm to talk about health and safety and and all those things.
 It wasn't a requirement of my job.
 It's just something that that I thought I wanted to do and it it kind of helped me.
 Ironically, maybe more in a bit of a negative way because my my brother unfortunately passed away.
 You know, workplace tragedy in 2000, so having some of that background, I had an understanding of some of the questions to ask when.
 So that incident happened, but unfortunately, as as all investigations happen, they're not.
 People are not allowed to, especially the government, doing the investigation not allowed to really provide any information.
 So even though I had a good background and what questions to ask as I wasn't able to get answers to those questions just cause of the circumstance.
 But generally speaking, I've also been in active in operations with the companies that I've been with and implementing health and safety programs and driving people to really, really want to be safe at work.
 So they can go home and spend time with their families and do all the fun things that we get to do.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   3:32
 Before we actually get into the threads of life survey, uh, would you mind sharing a little bit more about the tragedy that affected you personally?
Todd Smith   3:42
 Sure.
 So my brother was a mechanic working at a car dealership and the situation was he was to work on a limousine which is not a normal thing that they do in the dealerships.
 As I think everybody knows, you bring your car in, they put it up on the hoist and then they're able to work on it.
 But obviously with the limousine that wasn't the case.
 So because this was an abnormal job, what we do in our industry is do what they call a field level hazard assessment.
 So you're assessing the risks of the job.
 Since it's a new one, in order to be able to make sure you can do it safely and unfortunately the the employer didn't do that at the time and there was some Safety pieces of equipment that could have been utilized to help prevent the accident, which unfortunately we're not.
 So when my brother actually went underneath the limousine to do the work, just being jacked up instead of being on the House, the Jack failed and came down.
 And and basically crushed him.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   4:47
 Tragic for both you and how big was your family at the time?
Todd Smith   4:52
 I have one other sibling plus my parents and and fairly small family actually there.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   4:58
 So what was the outcome of the investigation when when all was said and done?
Todd Smith   5:04
 They'll come in.
 The investigation ended up with the company being charged by the Ministry of Labor.
 They were imposed a fine, and that's generally the outcomes in a lot of these cases where where there's a fatality.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   5:21
 So Todd thirds of life, certainly a an organization that's very involved in all aspects of of safety.
 They did a survey back earlier this year.
 Why don't you tell us a little bit about maybe why they did that survey and how it was conducted?
Todd Smith   5:42
 Sure.
 And maybe just a little background, Perley.
 So because of that incident with my brother, that's what really got me involved in threads of life.
 So I became a speaker.
 4 threads of life at at what they call the Speakers Bureau.
 So we go out to various employers to try and create where and awareness to those employers by telling the workers and the management at those employers about the tragedies that we've experienced in the hopes that, you know, those things can be prevented in the future.
 So that was my initial interaction with threads of life, and since then I've also become part of the Board of Directors.
 I'm currently the vice chair with the board there at Threads of Life, so again the couple things that threads of life likes to do is again try to create awareness and and ultimately prevention so that you know accidents are reduced or eliminated in in, in Canada and it's it's it's a very challenging thing to do with a small company like that.
 So we do do fundraisers to create awareness.
 We do other programs, but the other thing we thought of is doing surveys and we thought, you know, a nice thing from our perspective that we could put the Survey together where it's more or less anonymous.
 You know, there's not a company behind the survey that's trying to to use those results for maybe their own purposes.
 This is simply trying to find out information from employees about health and safety and how it is in their individual workplaces from an anonymous perspective.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   7:25
 Now you also had to survey done by a very reputable organization.
Todd Smith   7:31
 Yeah.
 Angus Reid.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   7:32
 Angus.
 Angus Reid.
 So it it wasn't a case that this was just a a quick survey that someone put together, you and I wouldn't hired thirds of life went out and hired a very, very reputable organization to put a strong Survey together to ensure it was accurate.
 So what did threads of life learn from the survey?
 What did the the results tell them?
Todd Smith   7:54
 I think we we we have found out we also did not sure if we were aware early but we did a survey a couple years ago.
 It was a different survey, but more aligned with young workers and safety.
 So what we learned is some information from that to make us continue to want to do these surveys, to see how things are improving into the marketplace.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   8:05
 Umm.
Todd Smith   8:15
 And we found a number of things with this particular survey and I think we have to remind everybody that these surveys are a snapshot number one, and they're based on the questions that do get asked.
 So this wasn't an all encompassing, you know 500 question type Survey.
 It was very directed at a number of different points and we found that from a safety training perspective, the stats have said that 74% of the respondents said they're companies has safety training versus 23% overall say they didn't have any safety training in place.
 So obviously we've learned there's more work to be done specifically on the training side.
 The other interesting.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   9:03
 Now, Dan.
 Sorry, sorry.
 Sorry didn't help you there.
 How do you feel about that stat from a point of view that you know, roughly 1/4 that workplace is out there?
 Have nothing shippo.
Todd Smith   9:13
 Well, obviously it's disappointing because you know there are requirements under the occupational Health and Safety Act to train employees.
 So the fact that some of them are not being trained is very, very concerning, especially when, like I say, we did the previous survey for young workers.
 That's where there's a huge uptick in accidents with young employees because they don't have the experience.
 And if they don't have the training that goes along with them, then it's even more concerning.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   9:42
 OK.
 Continue on.
Todd Smith   9:44
 Sure.
 The other thing we found out was that, uh, there's not a lot of mental health awareness programs out there with employees.
 So a lot of times employees come to work, they've got some issues on their mind or some kind of mental illness that may distract them from doing their job.
 And then ultimately cause some kind of accident on on the work site.
 So we obviously like to see some of that being improved as well from an overall mental health perspective, but specifically also as it as it attributes to safety in the workplace.
 And I think the last thing that we learned is with respect to why some of the companies are not as active in the Training element and some of the responses came back roughly half noted that a lack of time for training was a challenge and also that the rules or the regulations may be confusing as to how and why and when that they need to train their employees.
 So again another concerning element there, that lack of time.
 I prevents people from Training employees.
 That's that's a very concerning element.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   11:11
 So what would you suggest to someone who's been involved in health and safety for a number of years now?
 To overcome that thinking.
Todd Smith   11:19
 I think there's a few things, Perley, that again, we tried to get out there into the marketplace and that, yes, the training is an important element and we really need to find ways for, for people to do that.
 If they're saying there's lack of time, maybe there's other additional government resources that can be had to to help, especially on those small medium sized businesses because they are struggling from a personnel perspective.
 But it's also if we go beyond even the Survey, developing the safety culture and the leadership.
 So that's a society thing.
 So if you recall 30 years ago, drinking and driving wasn't really a big deal.
 It was kind of accepted, but that has changed over time.
 Society has said no, that's not right.
 We need to change that and it has come a long way to the point where it is no longer accept that people still do it, but it's it's a some substantially reduced.
 We need to try to find a way for society to tell everybody that being unsafe in the workplace is no longer acceptable because there's still some degree of acceptance out there.
 I I've talked to many, many companies and some people are actually budgeting for accidents and fatalities in the workplace, which is is is insane.
 Why would we ever want to do something like that?
 So that culture, component and society component needs to change as well, and it's just more and more awareness that we have to try to keep pushing on a daily basis.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   12:56
 Now you talk about that and the perception of health and safety was another area that I know you looked into in the survey and and get some results and that's scary.
 Uh, some of the results that you did achieve, would you would you review those with us?
Todd Smith   13:13
 Sure.
 Umm, there's there's agreement that in one aspect it says 70% overall believe that they have a good health and safety program.
 And and 2/3 of the respondents say that organizations put health and safety ahead of everything else.
 That's that's very positive obviously.
 But the question is, is, is that actually the truth?
 So 1/3 of respondents agree strongly or somewhat that there's a cost in order to be able to do that, and I challenge some of the people that I deal with when they tell me that cost is a is an inhibiting factor.
 Because if you actually look at the cost of an injury, both your insurance premiums, your wsib premiums, that employee is going to be off work for three months or six months or whatever the time frame is, you'll need to bring somebody else in and probably pay them a premium to do that job.
 So there is a huge cost for every single accident that happens at work that people just don't realize.
 And I think it's important that we need to get that message out there because spending a day doing training for 10 employees versus the cost of 1 individual accident is actually way higher than the cost of the training itself.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   14:43
 So now the last part of that bullet that you're reading from that I got a copy of the survey as well.
 Uh talks about 23% agree that a certain number of accidents and injuries are a cost of doing business.
 23%, that's almost again 1/4 believe it to cost of doing business.
 What were your thoughts when you read that statement?
Todd Smith   15:08
 Again, as I've said, some people, some companies actually budget for the cost of having accidents.
 So 23% saying that that's a cost of doing business.
 That's insane.
 How many people would answer that if you said it's gonna be your loved one?
 That's actually having the accident.
 So that's just the cost of doing business.
 I think the answer would be very, very different if you pose it in a different way.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   15:34
 Yeah.
 And I I remember here in Atlantic Canada a number of years ago, they built a fixed link bridge to PEI, and that time we heard all kinds of comments about that.
Todd Smith   15:41
 Yep.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   15:44
 They had budgeted for two or three, two to three fatalities, and I remember hearing that at the time.
Todd Smith   15:48
 Right.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   15:49
 And thinking, my gosh, that's that's horrible.
 Horrible.
Todd Smith   15:53
 Yeah.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   15:53
 Maybe it from a an accounting point of view, it might make some sort of sense, but from a people point of view, you know who wants to be those two or three people say it.
Todd Smith   16:04
 Exactly, exactly.
 That's almost a self fulfilling prophecy, right?
 Like if you budget for three people, you're probably gonna have three people having fatalities at the end of the day.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   16:08
 Yep.
 So when you first read this survey and and 1st went through the results, who?
 Uh.
 Either as a board member or or as an individual, or your overall thoughts.
Todd Smith   16:29
 I think again, when you look at all those results, they they end up being somewhat disappointing.
 You're not having all companies making sure that their employees are trained.
 You're having comments that it's just the cost of doing business, et cetera.
 So it says to me that we still have a long way to go and the the results that we see within Canada, that 3000 Canadians per year end up as a fatality and that hasn't really changed in the last 20 years.
 So again, it says to me we've got a lot of work to do to really push that number down.
 And again, I go back to the fact that I I think overall a society we haven't come to the point where we said that's unacceptable and we need to do something about it because the number has been very, very steady for, like I say, at least 2 decades.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   17:27
 Yeah.
 And sometimes, you know, I hear people that are involved in health and safety.
 Yeah, even some of the regulators that say all we're doing well, but you know, when I read statistics such as this, when you're talking 1/3 uh, not her having very poor programs and 1/4 not having any programs.
 Uh, and you see some of these, uh, attitudes towards health and safety.
 It's it's kind of scary.
 We have a lot of work to do.
Todd Smith   17:55
 Yeah.
 And I think it's not just to be put on employers.
 So as an example, there's the traditional bot of an employee goes to work.
 There's a guard on the machine that he's working on, but the employee takes that guard off even though they've got the proper training.
 They've been told not to, but they've found the job is easier without it.
 And then they have an accident.
 So that is that is right on that employee and I'm not trying to necessarily blame them.
 I'm just trying to go back to again.
 Why are people doing that?
 It's a cultural thing where we think that's acceptable and that's another element that has to get changed.
 It's not just the employer making sure they're doing all the right things, because I know Perley, when you talked about the stats my own company has very, very good safety stats, but people are still getting hurt, and sometimes it's it's, uh, them doing things themselves, whether like I say, they come to work with a something on their mind.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   18:53
 Umm.
Todd Smith   19:01
 We all have other things to think about, whether it's how am I going to make the borage payment or or they're my kid is having difficulties at school and we're not focusing on the job to make sure that we stay safe or like I say, there's other people that think it's never gonna happen to them and they take the guard off and and then it does happen to them. What?
Perley Brewer (Guest)   19:22
 Now, what are the areas that you looked at in your in the survey was buy in from the point of view of buy in by management also buy in by employees.
 Could you talk a little bit about that for us?
Todd Smith   19:35
 Yeah, that's a tough one.
 Uh, early.
 Because you know, you're asking people and you're hoping that they're gonna be honest.
 But I've certainly seen experience in the workplace where I'll go to one of my facilities and you have buy in.
 Everyone says, yeah, we're gonna do all those things.
 And then you walk out into the yard and you find out that they're actually not.
 So buying is a very difficult question in that survey because we did get a pretty good response that buy in is not a problem, but again you go back to people not doing those things when they're actually in the workplace, whether they take a guard off or they're not wearing their safety eyeglasses that are supposed to.
 So it's a question of are those honest answers in terms of the buy in, because I think everybody wants to, but sometimes it doesn't always happen.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   20:27
 Now when you look at the results, the results are are much better for larger organizations, but they quote here from the 100 to 499 employees.
 So your medium sized businesses, they say senior management buy in can be a challenge.
 You know, they talk about 42% in employees, 32%.
 That's a.
 That's a pretty big, pretty big number.
Todd Smith   20:50
 Yeah.
 And and again when you look at the elements of health and safety, you need a good training program.
 You need to have the culture there.
 That's that people do buy in, but it only happens if the leadership is supporting.
 So I've seen many a times where, you know a leader goes and walks through the yard or a plant and somebody isn't wearing their safety glasses.
 For example, if they walk by that person and don't say anything, basically what you've said to that person, that's health and safety isn't really a priority, even though we might have a corporate logo or mission statement that says it is.
 You've just told everybody, and not only that person, but everybody around that.
 It's not really that important, so leadership is very, very critical to make sure that that they have buy in and in my opinion and this is what I do in my workplace, is make sure I'm seeing with all the employees and doing the right things because again it goes back to leadership by example.
 If you're not out there and you're not leading by example, either employees don't know what how you feel, or or if they.
 If they do see you when you're not doing things the way that should be, or the way that the company policy say, then you got another problem.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   22:09
 Now, you mentioned you're on the Board of thirds of Life.
Todd Smith   22:12
 Correct.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   22:13
 Now when the board members would have reviewed this survey you mentioned what your thoughts were.
 What do you recall?
 What's the thoughts were from some of the other board members?
Todd Smith   22:24
 I think very, very similar.
 We didn't go into a lot of detail, Perley, to be honest with you.
 However, the ultimate outcome of it was OK, we have more work to do, so we're gonna continue to try to do the best we can.
 We're gonna talk to our other partners that are in the healthy Safety fields, and we're gonna continue to do annual anonymous surveys like this to see if we can see improvement as time goes on.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   22:55
 Now you did a survey you mentioned a couple years ago on youth.
 Uh, you did this one this year?
Todd Smith   22:58
 Yeah.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   23:00
 What would be your next one?
 Do you have a?
 Have you?
 Did you talk at all about what the next topic would be?
Todd Smith   23:06
 I think I think we're gonna, I think what we decided is that we wanna have something that's gonna be very, very similar so that we could show the measured results.
 Having the surveys is good.
 We did the one regarding youth.
 Sorry, which was very, very helpful, but now we need we've decided we need a measuring stick, so we're gonna stick with a very similar Survey.
 There may be some questions that could changed or tweaked as we go forward, but we wanna use that so that we can do a survey on an annual basis and show the results over time.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   23:42
 So you mentioned a lot of work still needs to be done.
 What would you like to see done specifically to help improve health and safety across Canada?
Todd Smith   23:54
 What we're going as threads of life, we will continue to reach out to employers through our speakers Bureau program.
 Try to create more awareness to employees that are out there and and employers will continue to go to events, conferences, et cetera and talk about safety and help our other partners that are out there doing the same thing in terms of trying to create that.
 And that better awareness and and ultimately prevention.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   24:26
 Now your personal story, Todd.
 Uh, have you had any opportunity to share that very much?
Todd Smith   24:32
 Yeah.
 So I'll I'll and I'll give you a little bit of further on that.
 So I've been doing the Speakers Bureau for the last I think 7 or 8 years and doing those uh presentations you you're really go away and you don't know how everybody is feeling about them.
 The folks are very, very quiet.
 You can either pin drop during those presentations, but after you leave, you don't really understand again how people are feeling.
 But I had the case of a few years ago going to visit customer to do a little tour for specifically for my work.
 And when I met the individual there, I introduced myself and he said, yeah, I I know you.
 I said I'm sorry, I I don't know.
 Who?
 Who you are, he says.
 He said you probably won't, but but four years ago you came and you told the story about your brother.
 Because I remember that story every single day, and I try as a supervisor now to make sure my workers are safe and that nobody goes home hurt.
 So I thought that was a very powerful experience that, yes, there's one person that the very least that it did affect and and and in a positive way.
 Hopefully there's many more, but that was very odd.
 Inspiring to hear that from that individual.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   25:59
 One thing I wanna interject here Todd, is that I've been involved in health and safety for 32 years and the comment I keep hearing over and over again is that when people do hear stories such as yours, it truly makes an impact.
 It it probably makes a bigger impact than than other things that might be done in health and safety.
 They they really do.
 They may not say a lot.
 They may sit there very quietly as you just mentioned, but they do take away a lot from your message, so certainly keep keep doing those now.
 I guess to maybe finish off if if you were talking personally to a group of employees with what you've gone through as a family and as well with what it shows here in the Survey.
 Firstly, what would be your message to employees and then secondly, what would be your message to employers?
Todd Smith   26:49
 Yeah.
 Excellent question, Perley.
 So oftentimes when I'm working with some of the employees at my own work, I try to get them to recognize why the health and safety is important.
 It's not important for me.
 It's not important for my company to make sure we're following all the rules.
 It's not for the company to be able to write people up and get them in trouble.
 It's really for them and so that they can go home and enjoy their things that they like to do, whether it's their family or their cottage or drive their boat or all of those sorts of things.
 And sometimes it's it's it's a one on one that's required to sit and explain that.
 Like if I've if I've noticed that somebody isn't following the safety rules.
 That's how I approach it.
 I'm not writing them up, I'm talking to them, and it might be a 30 minute conversation to get the people to start thinking that, yeah, this is really about me and being safe.
 Not that the company is putting rules in place to enforce things on us that we don't really wanna do that it's actually important for them from the employer perspective.
 Umm, again, I think it's it's it's down to that level of engagement with their employees.
 You know, every company has requirements and and under legislation to do certain things, but it's not really about that, it's it's all about keeping their employees safe.
 And I certainly recall.
 When I was at the hospital, when my brother was taken there, the owner of the company came to the hospital as well and he met me and, you know, he shook my hand and he apologized.
 And as odd as it sounds, the the first thing I thought of, well, I never wanna be the that guy.
 Cause that I feel really bad for him having to apologize even though I've been through all these emotions.
 I don't wanna be that guy.
 So that's I think the goal to try to get through to employers is nobody wants to be that person that has to go and say sorry to a family because something has happened to their loved ones.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   29:10
 So to finish off, how is your family doing today?
Todd Smith   29:15
 It's.
 It's tough, Perley, to be honest.
 My my parents had a really hard time, as I'm sure you can imagine, probably the worst thing that can happen to anybody is to lose one of their children and they actually don't even know all the details that I do about what happened.
 They don't want to know.
 They they know the end result and they don't really wanna get into the details.
 So I don't tell them and I have a sister and she actually still goes to therapy for things in general, but to do with my brother's passing as well.
 So she's still struggling.
 And and for me, the unfortunate thing as well is that that incident happened on my birthday.
 So you know when your birthday rolls around, it's supposed to be fun and exciting.
 And it's certainly a challenging time of year for me when that time rolls around every year.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   30:15
 Well, look, Todd, I'd like to thank you very much again for agreeing to do the podcast today.
 Uh, certainly.
 Your message does resonate, and I'm sure resonate with the various groups that you talked to.
 Certainly from a point of view, the threads of life and you can certainly pass on the message to the board.
 You're doing great things.
 It's a it's a super good organization from the point of view of, of trying to help people like yourself and your family and many other families across Canada that unfortunately have gone through these kinds of situations.
 So keep up all your good work.
Todd Smith   30:51
 Well, thanks for having me, Perley.
 And I appreciate all the kind words.
Perley Brewer (Guest)   30:55
 So if you've been listening to our podcast today, it's easy to find out more about threads of life as simple as Googling threads of life organization.
 All kinds of information on their speakers Bureau comments on their survey and all kinds of other good information to to help you better understand health and safety and why it is so important that we work at change in the mindset.
 Thank you very much Todd, for joining us on today's podcast.
 We very much appreciate it.
 Stay safe.
 See you next week.  |
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