According to the Occupational Safety and Health Act, every worker/supervisor needs to be aware of basic workplace health and safety as well as his/her rights and obligations.
The reason why it has been mandatory with effect from July 1, 2014, is so that workers do not get injured at the workplace – not only does this cause loss of man hours for the employer, it might also mean the latter having to foot medical expenses for the former.
There are now health and safety courses online that are accredited by the Human Resources Skills Development Canada (HRSDC). These help employees assess risk better, which is a good thing - the chances of new workers getting hurt are three times greater than that of experienced employees. The online courses have risk management as part of the training, and the training certificate is valid for life.
If your employees are not computer literate, or in the event that they do not speak English or French as their first language, the printed training material is available in seven other languages – Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Hindi, Punjabi, Spanish, Portuguese and Urdu. There is no need to re-take the training if the previous workplace health and safety training meets the new regulations.
