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Serious Injury Prevention Initiative

The Serious Injury Prevention Initiative is a three-year plan to prevent serious injuries in the Transportation and Warehousing, Trade, Public, and Service sectors. A serious injury is defined by severity (e.g., fractures of major bones) or potential severity, and/or a long recovery period.

  • Our goals
  • Our focus
  • What employers can do

Our goals

The goals of the 2018–2020 Serious Injury Prevention Initiative are to: 

  • Conduct inspection and enforcement activities to prevent serious injuries from occurring
  • Inform and educate employers, workers, and industry representatives about the top risks within their industries and workplaces, and work with them to prevent serious injuries

Our focus

  • Inspections in 2020 will focus on employers in the restaurant industry (CU 761035)
  • Inspect workplaces to ensure compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation
  • Inspections can take place at any time during employers’ regular business hours. Follow-up inspections will take place, as necessary. Inspections may also take place across shifts and can include evenings and weekends

Inspections will focus on three elements:

  • Identifying top risks in workplaces and ensuring those risks are managed; this includes consulting with and educating employers and workers about those risks
  • Ensuring key health and safety requirements are in place, including those related to health and safety programs and workplace inspections
  • Confirming that employers are providing worker orientation and training so workers are aware of hazards they are exposed to, the means to control those hazards, and health and safety rights and responsibilities

WorkSafeBC officers will provide an inspection report documenting workplace inspection findings. The report may include orders directing the employer to comply with minimum requirements set out in the Workers Compensation Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.

In addition to workplace inspections, direct mail campaigns and other outreach efforts may be employed to communicate the Initiative and specific risks, or harms.

What employers can do

The following resources will help you better understand and address some of the health and safety issues we’ll be focusing on with our inspections and initiatives.

See also