workplace
health and safety in the workplace
We believe health and safety is a team effort and an integral part of our daily business. Every member of the TELUS team plays an important role in establishing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. Our health and safety policy, which is available to team members through our internal web portal, outlines our health and safety goals and the operational principles that govern our workplace. We provide quarterly updates to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors on TELUS’ health and safety policies, programs and results.
TELUS team members have the opportunity to express their concerns and feedback about safety through the health and safety committee program. TELUS has 64 health and safety committees or approximately one committee per 500 team members (for high-risk areas, the ratio is about 15 to 20 team members per committee; for low-risk environments, the ratio is higher).
All health and safety committees are comprised jointly of non-management and management members. The non-management members are selected by the union where the union represents team members and by a majority vote where the union does not represent team members. The prime duty of a health and safety committee is to expeditiously deal with workplace health and safety issues brought to its attention. There is also a policy health and safety committee that deals with global policy and unresolved issues from workplace health and safety committees. All health and safety committee members are trained in their roles and responsibilities through an internally developed and delivered training course.
Each of TELUS’ legal entities has a customized approach to health and safety that includes policies, training, safety committees, website information and safety consultants. We voluntarily conduct audits of our safety practices on a regular basis to identify areas for improvement.
Safety training and communications
TELUS’ health and safety program applies to all TELUS team members, although priority attention is directed to higher risk occupations within the company. In high-risk areas, safety training begins with a mandatory safety review as soon as new team members join the company.
TELUS clearly emphasizes to front-line managers and team members their responsibility for safety as they are the closest to workplace hazards. Front-line team members in TELUS’ highest risk organization, TELUS Network Operations (TNO), are assigned “profiles,” which outline the minimum requirements for inspections and reviews necessary for safety due diligence. The Operations Administrative Tracking System (OATS) tracks compliance with the mandated norms. OATS compliance is reviewed by senior managers regularly.
Complementing OATS is the TELUS Safety Service Delivery Model. This model has six components: training; communications; consulting; auditing; safety standards development; and hazardous occurrences investigations, inspections and audit results. Under TELUS’ model, the first four items feed into the hazardous occurrences investigations and audit results, and are used to verify our safety strategy.
Safety indicators
TELUS recently introduced an online, interactive hazardous occurrence investigation reporting system. The system, which is accessible to all team members, allows for the near real-time review and tracking of the severity and frequency of safety incidents in TELUS’ workplaces. Through this tracking tool, trends in hazardous occurrences are recognized earlier and prevention strategies implemented sooner, creating a safer and healthier workplace for all TELUS team members.
In 2005, TELUS’ consolidated accident frequency was 0.86 lost-time accidents per 200,000 person-hours worked. TELUS wireline (excluding TELUS Québec and wireless operations), which represents the highest safety risk exposure across TELUS due to the size of the organization, the nature of the work activities, and the number of facilities, experienced an accident frequency in 2005 of 1.03 lost-time accidents per 200,000 person-hours worked.
To improve TELUS’ safety performance, key performance indicators for safety, such as training inspections and safety meetings, have been developed for each level of the organization. Progress on key performance indicators can be tracked by managers through the OATS database.
TELUS Network Operations was responsible for approximately 66 per cent of the lost-time accidents in 2005. TNO is the largest business unit in TELUS, with approximately 8,600 team members, and is responsible for designing, planning, building, operating and maintaining the TELUS network, as well as delivering a comprehensive and robust suite of voice, data and IP services on a national scale across all customer segments.
TELUS Network Operations set a 2005 performance target of 2.1 lost-time accidents per 200,000 person-hours worked, and performed better than the target with a rate of 1.76. The rate is a trailing metric that measures past safety efforts. TNO also has set performance targets for training and inspections (vehicle, building and worksite) to proactively identify and control workplace hazards. Because of the extended labour disruption, only one follow-up safety audit of a high-risk operation was conducted in 2005.
Absenteeism
In 2005, our absenteeism rate was 10.5 overall days lost per team member. By comparison, employees in the service-producing sector in Canada were absent an average of 9.2 days in 2005. TELUS’ long-term absenteeism goal is 8.3 days per team member per year, in alignment with benchmarking results for telecommunications companies in Canada.
Workers’ Compensation
In 2005, there were 572 Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) claims resulting in 48,843 claimed hours. While the number of claims decreased from 2004, the hours claimed increased.
