Posters

Over the years, the Centre has built a collection of 34 bilingual posters that organizations can use to help promote health and safety in their workplace. From hot button issues such as mental health, to hazards such as slips, trips and falls, workplaces use these posters to reinforce health and safety messages, techniques, and best practices. In fact, more than 50,000 posters were downloaded from our website this year in addition to the tens of thousands of the Day of Mourning posters that were reproduced by labour unions.

50,833

downloads

Not surprisingly, the most popular titles were those related to WHMIS 2015 and GHS. While CCOHS will continue to add new posters that address emerging workplace health and safety issues, we are noticing that there is a shift emerging in the preferred formats of this information. Poster popularity is giving way to our more compact Fast Fact Cards and On Topic pieces that provide bite-sized information and tips; demand for customization of these materials is increasing.

Infographics

CCOHS also spreads awareness to a variety of different audiences by sharing data in a more visually appealing way through the use of infographics. Doubling the size of the collection this year, CCOHS experimented with 6 new topics including: New Worker Safety in Canada, Fatigue and Work, Indoor Air Quality, Hazard Control, The Aging Workforce in Canada, and CCOHS’ Forum 2016 Highlights. Overall, the infographics web page had 23,749 page views, however the highly popular Fatigue and Work infographic garnered almost a third of the views. Each infographic page provides users with a snapshot/lightbox view and an explanation of what infographics are and their intended purpose, encouraging users to share them electronically. Another enhancement for users is they can print the infographics in a larger size should they wish to display the information as a poster.

23,749

page views

Podcasts [Health and Safety To Go!]

Since 2009, CCOHS has provided workers across Canada with audio health and safety information through its Health and Safety to Go! podcast program. The podcasts allow CCOHS to connect with Canadians in a less traditional format, thus expanding the Centre’s reach and impact with more people across a larger landscape. CCOHS’ podcasts are used on mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets, and MP3 players. This year CCOHS produced 22 new podcasts bringing the total episode count to 170. We know that many workplaces, educational institutions and organizations link to specific episodes of interest which partly explains the 31% growth in podcast listens (57,758 listens this year). Next year CCOHS will be looking at ways to improve this free service starting with a plan to retire and replace outdated episodes with newer content, and place greater focus on featuring partnerships for interview content.

57,758

listens

The Health and Safety Report

Workers, employers, and health and safety professionals and enthusiasts alike stay current and informed with their subscription to CCOHS’ largest communications channel, the Health and Safety Report newsletter. This free monthly e-newsletter delivers current workplace health and safety news, information, advice and tips to 28,781 subscribers from 183 countries – 75% being from Canada (the database was cleansed resulting in the elimination of more than 5,000 broken records from the previous year).

28,781

Subscribers

From

183 countries

75%

from Canada

Approximately 92% of subscribers share the newsletter with others, resulting in an additional 705,360 monthly reach. The annual readership survey provides a testament to the quality and high appreciation for this popular newsletter. It routinely earns a 99+% overall satisfaction rating with the content and format. The value of the newsletter extends beyond the individual subscriber as 98% said that the newsletter provides value to their organization, and 71% of users indicated that they use the information in the newsletter to make current or planned changes in their workplace that might improve occupational health and safety.

Articles from the Health and Safety Report are a staple for other publications, media outlets and organizations, who repurpose them for their own use. Our informal tracking of the 45 publicly shared reprints resulted in approximately a million impressions of extended reach.

705,360

monthly reach

Media

CCOHS continues to be a “go to” resource for trustworthy health and safety content, perspective, advice, and guidance. With our active media program, subject specialists provide advice and interviews to satisfy media requests. We maintain a high profile with regular media releases and by seeding editorial content with media outlets. This year the Centre recorded 576 media sightings* (up 26.5% from last year).

These various media mentions represented an estimated reach in excess of 203,022,077 (95% growth) impressions in national and international news outlets such as the National Post, CBCNews.ca, The Weather Network, Globe and Mail, PLANT Magazine, COS Magazine, Canadian Business Magazine, 680 News, Edmonton Journal, Toronto Star, Huffington Post Canada, CBC Radio, the Ottawa Citizen, and the New York Post to name a few.

* A media sighting is when a CCOHS subject specialist was quoted, the Centre was referenced as an information source, or when our online fact sheets, articles or media releases were repurposed by other publications.

Exhibiting and Speaking Engagements

Attending conferences as exhibitors and presenters are one of the many ways in which CCOHS works to create awareness about current issues and the work we do, while establishing credibility with new and existing clientele.

This year, CCOHS attended, exhibited, or presented at events that supported employer, labour, governmental groups and Indigenous Peoples. CCOHS’ strategic plan’s sector-specific focus helped us forge new relationships and potential partnerships from our exhibits and presentations at mining, construction, oil and gas, healthcare and public health events. This year, CCOHS participated in 45 conferences and events, as well as accepted 37 speaking engagements, achieving a total conference reach of 33,271, an 11% increase over the previous year.

Next year, we will continue to serve and increase our presence in every province and territory in Canada. We will speak or exhibit across the country to extend our regional and professional reach by participating in industry-specific events focusing on mining, construction, oil and gas, healthcare, public health, and Indigenous populations.

e-Learning

Preventing injuries and illness caused by work must be a priority for everyone in the workplace. An important part of prevention is equipping workers with basic knowledge of their roles and responsibilities and ensuring they understand and have the ability to identify hazards and perform their job safely. Educating employees is a critical step in injury prevention and key to the future success of any organization. CCOHS endeavors to make health and safety education affordable, and easy and convenient to access, with its extensive program of 106 online courses (e-courses) on a wide range of relevant topics.

CCOHS courses are created with assistance and advice from outside technical experts when required, while the tripartite external review of courses by representatives of government, employers, and labour helps achieve balance, accuracy and understanding by all parties in the workplace. To help promote basic awareness of important health and safety issues such as workplace violence and mental health, CCOHS offers free awareness e-courses. These courses provide users with an introduction to the issue at hand and also to CCOHS’ online learning platform. In total, uptake of e-courses totalled almost 190,000 seats. There were 95,214 accesses to the free courses this year and 94,439 seats were purchased, with the WHMIS 2015 e-course proving to be, by far, the most popular title.

190,000

seats accessed

Most Popular Course

WHMIS 2015 for Workers

Publications

Whether workers are sitting at a desk or working remotely, there are times when they need access to information at their fingertips. But for those who need more information than what’s offered on a fact sheet, or who don’t have access to technology while out in the field, CCOHS has a collection of publications and other documents in easy to read print and electronic formats. The collection of 30 publications provides information that is practical, authoritative and balanced. These popular health and safety guides inform people of workplace hazards to reduce risk and help prevent injury, and are designed for use on-the-job as reference tools and information sources. CCOHS is exploring alternative, mobile delivery formats to meet the changing needs and expectations of workers. This year, 6,605 publications were purchased.

6,605

purchased

CCOHS developed a comprehensive WHMIS 2015 Instructor’s Toolkit for trainers to use while educating others about WHMIS 2015. The toolkit, comprised of an instructor’s guide, participants’ guide and PowerPoint slides, was developed last year and released in the spring of 2015. To date, 383 toolkits and 836 participant workbooks have been purchased, for a total of 1,219 copies.

WHMIS.org Website

With information about WHMIS spread across various government websites, it was clear that a one-stop-shop was needed to help employers and workers in Canada navigate the complexities of adopting WHMIS 2015. Last year, CCOHS launched WHMIS.org, a national website that provides a single point of access to the most current information about WHMIS 2015 from all of the jurisdictions across Canada. Containing helpful tools and resources for workers, employers, suppliers and trainers, the website was a collaboration between CCOHS and the Workplace Hazardous Materials Bureau of Health Canada, as well as each of the federal, provincial and territorial occupational health and safety regulatory jurisdictions across Canada. This year, the website had almost 70,000 sessions, 78% of which were from Canada. The top three provinces accessing the site were Ontario (48%), Alberta (15%), and Quebec (10%).

As of April 2016, the following six jurisdictions: British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Quebec, had implemented WHMIS 2015. The remaining jurisdictions are at different stages in their legislative process.

69,542

sessions

New Brunswick Web Tool/App

In the previous year, CCOHS and WorkSafeNB partnered to create the New Brunswick Web Tool/App, a bilingual microsite and mobile app to help employers in the construction industry find regulatory requirements in one easy to find spot. The microsite, A Guide to OSH Legislation, features 30 construction-related topics with links to resources, including interpretations, summaries, legislation, hazard alerts and safety talks, all in an easy-to-read format. The microsite was released in the spring of 2015. In February 2016 an additional 9 topics were added and it was launched as stand-alone iOS and Android apps. In this first partial year, and combining the web and app data, there were 11,024 users viewing 41,172 pages/screens.

Through this opportunity, CCOHS is working with Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories to develop comparable applications in those jurisdictions. Work is expected to start in the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW) PainPoint App

While a professional ergonomic assessment is considered the most effective way to address work-related discomfort, there’s also an app for that! CCOHS collaborated with the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW) to develop PainPoint – Prevent Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) at Work, a free app that helps users take action at preventing injuries. The app delivers a very basic ergonomic assessment by running users through a series of diagrams and questions to pinpoint musculoskeletal pain, identify possible sources, and discover practical solutions. The results are depicted on a body map, with recommendations to address work-related musculoskeletal hazards that could be a contributing factor to the users’ discomfort. PainPoint was released in October 2015 and is available for use on iOS, Android, and Blackberry devices.

WorkSafe Saskatchewan “Five Pillars” Health and Safety Web Tool

CCOHS and WorkSafe Saskatchewan partnered this year to create an online portal to act as a plain-language guide to the “Five Pillars” of a sound health and safety program: job hazard analysis, inspections, investigations, practices and procedures, and training. Each of these pillars will have a summary document, and links to legislation, education, training, and other resources such as form and fact sheets. The web tool is under development, and is set to launch in the Fall of 2016.

Health Canada and WHMIS 2015 Promotional Campaign

CCOHS and Health Canada partnered to develop free resource materials to prepare, inform and support workplaces during the transition to WHMIS 2015, and equip employers and employees with the necessary information needed to work safely. A two-tiered campaign to promote these important free resources was deployed in November 2015, and was targeted to small business owners. A second tier is currently scheduled for July 2016 targeting chemical suppliers and handlers.

The small business campaign leveraged a combination of CCOHS communication channels (newsletters and social media) and external business-focused properties including coverage in The Canadian Business Journal, and content placement in newsletters in Canadian Chambers of Commerce, with a nation-wide reach of over 70,000 members, across 20,000 businesses in more than 135 communities.

Free WHMIS 2015 For Workers e-Course

To help educate workers about the upcoming changes to WHMIS 2015, CCOHS partnered with the Workplace Hazardous Materials Bureau of Health Canada in 2014 to develop a free e-course: WHMIS After GHS For Workers.

The course was funded by Health Canada and was offered free of charge to the first 100,000 participants, for up to one year. With the anticipation of the Hazardous Products Regulation coming into force in February 2015, there was an increased interest in the course. As a result, CCOHS and Health Canada extended the free offer until March 31, 2016.

In addition to the free course, organizations that wanted to track their employees’ course usage paid $10 per seat to access the e-course, and had the capability of running usage reports on CCOHS’ Learning Management System.

Since the launch in 2015, 207,000 people have registered for this course. This year, a total of 173,582 individuals had registered for the free e-course, and 23,623 multiaccount user courses were sold. The top three provinces accessing the e-courses were Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia.

173,582

individual registrants

23,623

multi-user account seats sold

Government of Canada Mental Health Social Marketing Campaign

In 2015, CCOHS applied for national web advertising fund monies, which are allotted to federal government departments seeking to deliver national campaigns that support government-wide initiatives. CCOHS was accepted as a co-advertiser and worked with the Government of Canada to deliver the Workplace Mental Health Campaign 2015.

CCOHS worked in partnership with the Advertising Communications and Partnerships Directorate (ACPD) to co-brand these paid social placements with both CCOHS and Government of Canada wordmarks. This advertising partnership demonstrated commitment and partnership to help increase awareness and help reduce workplace and community stigma regarding attitudes and behaviours toward people living and working with mental health issues..

The campaign provided a prime opportunity to inform workplaces of the tools available from CCOHS to help increase their understanding and recognition of mental health issues at work, develop and implement approaches to promote mental health at work, and find quality resources and tools on a range of related topics.

The campaign leveraged a media mix of search engine marketing (Google AdWords) and promoted social content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The campaign launched July 15, 2016 and was embargoed as of August 2, 2015 as a result of the Federal election. During the two weeks of the campaign, daily traffic to the Healthy Minds at Work portal increased tenfold.

Next year, CCOHS hopes to continue the promotion of workplace mental health with a social media campaign during Mental Health Week and beyond.

Guarding Minds at Work

Mental health disorders place a heavy burden on the health and productivity in workplaces across Canada. The Guarding Minds @ Work website is a unique and free comprehensive set of resources from the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction, designed to protect and promote psychological health and safety in the workplace. It allows employers to assess and address the 13 psychosocial factors known to have a powerful impact on organizational health, the health of individual employees, and the financial bottom line.

Guarding Minds @ Work was developed by experienced research-practitioners from the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction, funded by Great-West Life, and is operationally supported and maintained by CCOHS.

This year, the Guarding Minds @ Work website was updated to provide clearer language, improved functionality, and greater consistency with current and emerging regulatory and legal standards and practices pertaining to workplace psychological health and safety. In addition, five new questions were added to the Guarding Minds @ Work Survey.

Health Canada Inspectors e-Courses

Health Canada and CCOHS worked together to develop e-course modules for inspectors who will be enforcing the Hazardous Products Act and Hazardous Products Regulations. This year, four new courses were released.

Focus on Safety [National Youth Video Contest]

Instilling a culture of safety has to start at a young age, and who better to deliver important messages to youth than youth? CCOHS, along with each province and territory, challenged high school students across the country to use their creativity to produce an original video that illustrates the importance of workplace health and safety. The Focus on Safety National Youth Video Contest (formerly It’s Your Job Video Contest) gave contestants and their schools a chance to win cash prizes, provincial/ territorial and national recognition, and national entrants were also eligible to win the Fan Favourite award. This year, Shirley Hickman, Executive Director of Threads of Life, returned as a contest judge and joining her on the panel were Gareth Jones, Acting PCEO of CCOHS, and Jim Hopkins, President of the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering (CSSE). The calibre of the content and creativity of the video was impressive and CCOHS was determined to ensure they were viewed by as many people as possible. To that end, CCOHS developed and promoted a Film Fest kit to other organizations to encourage video watch events across the country during NAOSH Week.

North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week

Every year, for one week, health and safety takes centre stage as people across the continent come together and resolve to make safety a habit. North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week is an annual initiative led by a partnership of key national organizations: CCOHS, the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering (CSSE), Employment and Social Development Canada’s Labour Program, and Threads of Life. As a national partner, CCOHS updates and maintains the NAOSH Week web site, and through its communications channels, promotes awareness of safety in addition to the week and related events. CCOHS attended and spoke at the 2015 NAOSH Week’s national launch event in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Canada School of Public Service

In 2014, CCOHS and the Canada School of Public Service partnered to provide online health and safety training courses to federal public servants. The partnership provided federal public servants listed under Schedules 1, IV or V of the Financial Administration Act in Canada with access to a wide variety of credible and relevant online health and safety courses. The partnership is ongoing with the courses offered by CCOHS added to the School’s existing suite of online products. They are a cost-effective way to meet the health and safety training needs of organizations and federal employees.

CSA Group Standards

CCOHS and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) have had a long standing relationship, partnering on a number of initiatives over the years. CCOHS began offering CSA Group Standards in 2014, and to date, over 180 CSA Group Standards have been purchased through the CCOHS website (20% increase over last year). This year, twelve new bilingual standards were added to keep the collection current and relevant for users.

CAREX Canada

CAREX Canada is the country’s leading source of evidence on Canadians’ exposures to workplace and environmental carcinogens, to support the effort to raise awareness of radon exposure. This year, CCOHS was invited to be a part of the organization’s CAREX Canada Knowledge Translation Advisory Committee. Comprised of members from across the country, the Committee helps guide their knowledge translation strategy and supports CAREX’ efforts to put their resources and tools into action for cancer prevention in Canada. Last fall, CCOHS collaborated with CAREX on an article about radon safety, and will continue to provide opportunities to share findings and advice from CAREX that can prevent work-related cancers.

Transportation Safety Board of Canada

To help the Transportation Safety Board of Canada improve their workplace health and safety programs, CCOHS helped them develop a Respiratory Protection Program and Confined Space Entry Program in 2014-15. This year, the project was completed and CCOHS will continue to develop health and a safety programs for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada next year.

CANWrite™ – (M)SDS Authoring Software

In Canada, manufacturers and suppliers must provide (material) safety data sheets with information to help employers and workers understand product hazards as well as how to work safely with them. CCOHS offers an online authoring tool, CANWrite™ which allows suppliers and manufacturers of chemical products to author (material) safety data sheets in English, French, and Spanish. In August 2015, CCOHS implemented changes to the service which allowed authors to write a single safety data sheet to comply with the Canadian Hazardous Products Act Regulations (WHMIS 2015) and the U.S. Hazard Communication Standard (HCS 2012). CCOHS saw a 110% increase in clients from last year, and 63% of clients upgraded to this new version.

Also new this year, to assist small businesses author WHMIS 2015 compliant safety data sheets, CCOHS developed a free, downloadable template that provides the minimum information elements for a safety data sheet as required by Schedule 1 of the Hazardous Products Regulations (HPR) (WHMIS 2015). The template is available in both standard and accessible formats in English and French.

MSDS Management Service

While authoring safety data sheets can be a challenge for some workplaces, managing the thousands of hazardous chemicals used in workplaces every day can certainly add to those challenges. CCOHS’ MSDS Management Service (MMS) is an online service that puts safety data sheets in one convenient location for users, and provides support and assistance to employers, helping ensure they comply with the legislation in their jurisdiction.

This year, upgrades were added to the service to enhance the user experience and to help support organizations as they transitioned to WHMIS 2015. Amongst the many upgrades made to the service, the most notable ones included: adding the option of batch printing to allow clients to print out their own data sheets; access to historical archives of product’s material safety data sheets; and a “Date Checked by CCOHS” notice was added to the service to show when CCOHS has verified that it is the newest one available. Further enhancements planned for next year include developing an advanced labelling tool, as well as enabling clients to toggle between the WHMIS 1988 and WHMIS 2015 versions of their data sheets.

The MMS service gained 30 new clients this year (a 7% increase from last year) bringing the total number of clients up to 170 across Canada. Next year, CCOHS plans to increase the reach of the MMS service by building new partnerships with sector-specific associations across Canada.

Canadian enviroOSH Legislation plus Standards Service

Navigating Canadian occupational health and safety legislation across jurisdictions can be tricky. To help make it easier for organizations and workers to access legislation and referenced standards to identify and understand their rights and responsibilities under the law, CCOHS offers an online service called the Canadian enviroOSH Legislation plus Standards. This year, CCOHS’ Legislation Innovation Team focused its efforts on identifying ways to strengthen and grow the service. To enhance the user experience, updates will be made next year to improve the search functionality of the tool, create custom webpages to allow clients to see their favourite documents, and introduce a variable subscription period to expand the market. CCOHS will also begin work next year on utilizing the service to develop new products such as legislative interpretative content and topic-based content. Currently the service has 315 clients.

CHEMINFO

To help workers migrate the complexities of workplace chemicals, CCOHS experts developed CHEMINFO – an internationally recognized resource containing critical safety information for over 1,800 workplace chemicals. The database provides essential health and safety information about chemicals to control workplace exposures and prevent accidents, and includes scientifically supported WHMIS 1988 regulatory classifications. In addition, there are two CHEMINFO spin-offs: Chemical Profiles (listed under the OSH Answers Fact Sheets) and the WHMIS 1988 Classification Database which is offered as a public service. CHEMINFO clients viewed over 67,582 records online this year.

67,582

records viewed