Creating and managing
a healthy and safe workplace
The basics
Whether your business is large or small, the
law requires that it be a safe and healthy place
to work. If you’re an employer, it is your
responsibility to ensure a healthy and safe
workplace. Your responsibilities include:
• Establishing a valid occupational health
and safety program.
• Training your employees to do their work
safely and providing proper supervision.
• Providing supervisors with the necessary
support and training to carry out health
and safety responsibilities.
• Ensuring adequate first aid equipment,
supplies, and trained attendants are on site
to respond to injuries.
• Regularly inspecting your workplace to make
sure everything is working properly.
• Fixing problems reported by workers.
• Transporting injured workers to the nearest
location for medical treatment.
• Reporting all injuries that required medical
attention to WorkSafeBC.
• Investigating incidents where workers
are injured or equipment is damaged.
• Submitting all necessary reporting forms
to WorkSafeBC.
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You can take additional steps to improve your
health and safety culture and performance,
beyond just meeting the basic requirements.
Here’s how:
Enhance your health and safety
culture and performance
Your workplace’s health and safety culture,
proactive management of health and safety,
and health and safety performance are
interlinked. Building a strong health and
safety culture will have a positive impact
on your workers, your bottom line, and
public perception.
Practice active health and safety
management
Active health and safety management is
an essential first step toward improving
your organization’s health and safety culture.
Manage an effective health and safety
program and implement initiatives that
continuously improve health and safety
in your workplace.
Plan for health and safety
A sound health and safety plan should focus
on specific goals and objectives that will
help you minimize key risks and improve
your occupational health and safety processes.
An annual improvement plan involves more than
just setting targets to reduce lagging indicators
such as incidents and time-loss days.
Demonstrate leadership and
commitment
Health and safety starts at the top. As a workplace
leader, you must demonstrate that you and your
organization take health and safety seriously.
Strong leadership and a firm commitment
to continuously improving health and safety
performance, backed by action, are the
foundations of a strong health and safety culture.
Supervise for health and safety
Supervisors are well-positioned to be safety
champions. Effective supervisors are intentional
and purposeful in promoting health and safety.
They should perform regular safety activities,
such as inspections, observations, investigations,
or crew talks. Other activities may be linked to
annual departmental safety plans.
Engage workers in health
and safety
Listen actively to what your workers and
supervisors are telling you, and respond in a
timely and appropriate way. If your workers know
you are open to listening to, and addressing their
questions and concerns, they will be more likely
to let you know if there are any unsafe conditions
or behaviors in the workplace. Your workers can
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be your eyes and ears on the frontline to report
health and safety concerns, solutions, and
suggestions for improvement.
Practice due diligence
Due diligence requires taking all reasonable steps
to protect workers from harm. ‘All reasonable
steps’ is based on the level of judgment and care
that a person would reasonably be expected to
do under the circumstances. An organization that
actively manages health and safety and takes all
reasonable steps to protect workers from harm
is being duly diligent.
Earn your Certificate
of Recognition
A Certificate of Recognition (COR) encourages
employers to create an occupational health
and safety management system that goes beyond
the current legal requirements. The voluntary
program recognizes employers who are proactive
about improving workplace safety, and dedicated
to continual improvement. By completing the
program, you may also qualify for a rebate on
your insurance premiums.
For more information
You’ll find a wealth of general and
industry‑specific information about health and
safety on our web site, at worksafebc.com. It
includes training materials, posters, publications,
videos, and much more.