What Does the Safety Office Do?
 
McGill is a very decentralized institution. In comparison with
other universities, McGill spends a small proportion of its
operating budget on administrative services. This is illustrated
by the relatively small staff complements in departments like
Purchasing and Human Resources who are very dependent on
individual departments shouldering much of the workload for these
areas of administration. Decentralization also applies to health
and safety.
 
At the Safety Office, we sometimes receive callers who are
unaware of this and are somewhat puzzled when we advise them to
call someone else to report a safety problem.
 
°I[m calling to report a safety problem µ our fume hood isn[t
working.ø
 
°Have you reported it to Physical Plant?ø
 
°No. It[s a safety problem. That[s why I[m calling the Safety
Office.ø
 
°Yes, I agree it[s a safety problem, but Physical Plant is in
charge of maintenance. You should report it first to the
Dispatcher at Local 4555.ø
 
°Okay, I[ll call them, but let me ask you something: what,
exactly, does the Safety Office do?ø
 
Good question. For what we do, the official answer can be found
in the form of the Safety Office mandate, Section D of the
Administrative Handbook.
 
For what we don[t do, let me begin by stating that the Safety
Office isn[t responsible for safety. Come again?
 
That[s right. Safety is a responsibility shared by all. The
principal role of the Safety Office is to assist others in
fulfilling their responsibilities. This may take the form of
gathering and disseminating information on workplace hazards,
evaluating work environments and assessing risks, and suggesting
ways of improving safety in the workplace, but the ultimate
responsibility for action usually lies with others, not the
Safety Office.
 
Now this may sound like a lot of buck-passing, but let[s face it
µ McGill is far too big a place to be looked after by a small
department. The Safety Office has 10 full time staff members,
with 6 dealing almost exclusively with waste management. That
leaves 4 people to deal with the myriad of occupational health
and safety issues that arise in a university community. Our
°communityø consists of more than 30,000 students and employees
working in either of two campuses, or any of the McGill
affiliated research centres and teaching hospitals. That[s a lot
of territory for four people to cover.
 
What[s the solution - more staff for the Safety Office? Although
I would happily welcome that prospect, I don[t believe it to be
necessary for a successful safety program. I am convinced that
the safety record of any institution is more dependent on its
management style and work culture than on the staffing of its
safety department. There[s no doubt that competent safety
professionals are necessary in certain situations, but noone has
ever proved that you can reduce accidents simply by increasing
the staff of the safety department. In fact, the opposite can
sometimes hold true, whereby an overstaffed safety department can
result in too much dependency on them and too little involvement
from the community.
 
Firms that are recognized as being the best performers with
respect to safety are characterized by massive involvement at all
levels of the organization - employee input in decision making,
training at all levels with particular emphasis on supervisory
staff, systems of accountability, and the integration of safety
philosophies into production departments.
 
At McGill, the health and safety programme is also dependent on
the involvement of a lot of people, starting with the Central
Safety Committee and a network of local safety committees who
work to establish internal standards. Of course the programme
depends heavily on students and staff to observe safe work
practices and to participate in training activities, and to
correct or report hazards to their supervisors. Supervisors and
department heads are needed to be receptive to safety concerns
and to take the necessary action to deal with local issues. We
also rely heavily on the many department safety officers, safety
representatives, first aiders, fire wardens, WHMIS trainers,
hazardous waste coordinators and building directors, all who have
agreed to accept responsibilities that go beyond their normal
duties. We are also dependent on those whose regular duties are
so intricately linked to safety - from Physical Plant who play
such a major role in caring for our facilities, to Student
Services, who are always trying to look out for our students. Of
course, we can never lose sight of the dependency on senior
administration to integrate health and safety issues into
decision making processes and to assign sensible priorities for
allocation of funds, an unenviable task in these difficult
financial times.
 
Being a university, we are also blessed with a wealth of internal
expertise which the Safety Office frequently turns to for advice
on some of the more complex scientific issues related to health
and safety.
 
There are many people we can thank for contributing to our
programmes, but too little space to list them all. Perhaps that
merits a separate column in a future issue.
 
Decentralization has its drawbacks, but it may also be McGill[s
principal strength and probably explains why we have so many
excellent teaching and research programs. I believe we can
utilize decentralization to our advantage and thoroughly
integrate health and safety into McGill[s work culture, but
without everyone[s support and participation it will never fly.
 
-Wayne Wood,
Manager,
McGill University Safety Office