Show Notes
In the face of new challenges in the workforce, leaders are being asked to do more today to ensure their workplaces are more physically and mentally safer than ever before. With the exiting of Baby Boomers and industry labour shortages, leaders are being tested in new ways.
How do we ensure our skilled workers are healthy and safe at work? How do we have employees return to work in a meaningful way? How do we attract new workers with innovative technology on the rise?
Many leaders are turning to innovative approaches to help them face these challenges.
In episode 6 of our Workshift podcast, WCB CEO Stuart MacLean talks to MJ MacDonald, CEO of Construction Safety Nova Scotia about how leaders are leaning in to address our new workplace realities.
Driven by a passion for workplace health and safety, MJ MacDonald is forging a new path for safety in the construction sector. She has worked as a senior leader in the public and private sectors for three decades. Two years into her role as CEO at Construction Safety, she has led the organization in the development of its new strategic plan.
What they’ll talk about
To face new challenges, leaders need new ways to ensure safe workplaces to retain and attract new employees.
MJ and Stuart discuss the changing landscape of safety with an added awareness of mental health at all levels. That means, in part, matching the right people with the right jobs, helping employees see their value, and ensuring they have meaningful work.
MJ also stressed the importance of having a safety framework in place to make workplaces safer.
What you’ll learn
Mental Health Awareness in the Construction Sector
Safety Associations help to raise awareness, education and training at all levels by incorporating mental health supports and tools into all required courses. Normalizing this support provides a cumulative effect of awareness that will create open dialogue amongst workers.
New Solutions to New Industry Challenges
Obtaining a certificate of recognition makes companies 20% more safe than others, leading to greater work opportunities. Matching ability and knowledge to job openings across sectors will create work that is meaningful and will contribute to a prosperous economy.
The Exciting Future of Construction
Embracing innovative areas of technology in the workplace will help alleviate a lot of the pressure and forces on workers and bring greater efficiency to worksites and administrative functions. Adopting innovation in construction will also contribute to attracting new workers to an exciting industry.
A Safe Culture Starts with Leaders
Culture needs to start with leaders. It’s critical that leaders have words and actions that are aligned with their team’s values, with safety being the top priority. If leaders put themselves in the position of workers, this helps to enforce a simpler approach to safety: if it’s not safe for our families, it’s not safe.
Make sure you follow WorkShift, a podcast from the Workers' Compensation Board that helps to rewrite the narrative on what makes a healthy, safe and successful workplace.
What is WorkShift?
It’s been said that we learn from experience. But we can learn a lot more when we add the experiences of others to our own.
On WorkShift, we're putting leaders in workplace safety on the mic to talk health, safety, but most of all, leadership in a world that has changed forever. Hear the stories behind their successes, and their failures, and how they’re meeting the same challenges you may be facing.
Whether you’re a leader or someone who enjoys inspiring conversations, WorkShift will change the way you think about work.
To learn more visit: https://www.worksafeforlife.ca/