Workplace Health and Safety
The business of producing electricity, by nature of our product and the work required to produce it, presents safety risks and hazards. We take very seriously the job of managing risks and eliminating hazards.
That is why we established our Target Zero initiative, with a vision to have a workplace where people do not get injured doing their work. Key values that guide the actions on our journey to achieve this vision are: All incidents are preventable. No job is so urgent that we cannot do it safely. Good safety is good business. Each employee and contractor can make a difference to our overall safety performance.
Performance
IFR for employees and contractors up
Our employee safety performance has improved substantially since first implementing our Target Zero initiative two years ago. In 2004, however, our employee injury frequency rate (IFR) worsened. At year-end, it was 1.69 injuries per 200,000 hours worked, compared with 1.47 in 2003. A major contributor to this increase was the higher number of musculoskeletal (soft tissue) injuries in our plants and head office.
We also recorded a higher IFR for our contractors, from 0.93 in 2003 to 4.50. This increase was mainly due to increased eye injuries during the year. The higher number of contractor injuries in 2004 was a reminder that we must continually maintain our focus on safety, especially during intense periods of plant maintenance activities, as was the case last year. A new standard for contractor safety management has been developed, and will be introduced throughout our organization in 2005.
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In 2004, more than half the lost-time and medical aid injuries reported by our workers were musculoskeletal conditions. These were typically muscle strains or pain caused by repetitive motion, heavy lifting or general work practices. We are developing a major awareness campaign, to be launched in 2005, that will help our employees to identify musculoskeletal injury hazards and take early preventive action.
17,000 near misses reported
Much of our success can be attributed to the active participation of all our facilities, which has led to increased hazard identification and near miss reporting. At year-end, all of our locations had identified these conditions, in total reporting 17,300 hazardous conditions and near miss incidents. This is almost six times the number reported in 2003. This increase is positive. Once a hazardous condition or near miss situation is identified, actions are taken to eliminate the hazard or the causes of the near miss to prevent future occurrences. The more near misses and hazards are reported and acted on, the safer the workplace.
Report card against leading indicators
To keep improving our safety performance, it is essential we monitor the execution of key elements of our safety management systems. Our company tracks a set of leading indicators that tell us how we are doing in carrying out these activities to prevent EH&S incidents. These consist of:
- mandatory training
- planned inspections
- near miss and hazard reporting
- incident investigation quality
All the indicators are focused on prevention. For example, conducting effective incident investigations and promptly correcting the causes will help to prevent recurrence of incidents in our worksites.
Leading Indicators Of Safety Performance
| 03 | 04 | ||
| Mandatory EHS training | % complete | 60 | 80 |
| Planned EHS inspections | % complete | n/r | 60 |
| Near miss/hazardous conditions reporting | number of reports | 2,900 | 17,300 |
| Incident investigation quality | % | 35 | 45 |
* n/r = not reported |
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Top rated by CEA for safety progress
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TransAlta received the Canadian Electricity Association’s (CEA) gold award for safety in 2004. Derek Goodmanson, director, Eastern Canada Operations (right), received the award from CEA President and CEO Hans Konow at a ceremony in Ottawa. |
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Each year the Canadian Electricity Association honors Canada’s best performing member companies in employee safety with an award of excellence. In 2004, TransAlta’s Canadian operations qualified as one of eight member companies from across Canada to receive the President’s Award of Excellence for employee safety, with a gold award recognizing three or more consecutive years of industry-leading safety performance. This was the fifth year in a row that TransAlta has been ranked in the top quartile for low injury frequency and severity rates.
Safety training and education
Strong focus on office safety
Our near miss, hazard and injury reports show that safety issues exist everywhere we work. One of the top causes of lost-time injuries across TransAlta in 2004 — slips, trips and falls — applied to our offices as well as our plant and mine locations. Late in the year, we took steps to raise more safety awareness in our offices, starting with our corporate office in Calgary, where we held a series of two-hour safety training sessions. More than 350 head office employees took part in the sessions. In 2005, we plan to extend this training to office employees outside of Calgary.
Expanding online education
We continued to develop our e-learning system to provide flexible learning opportunities for all our workers globally. Using the integrated computer-based system, employees can select course content that applies to their roles, participate in online learning and monitor their progress and record completions.
In 2004, we upgraded the system to improve ease of use and to better track course completions. Tracking course completions is extremely important to TransAlta in monitoring conformance to training requirements set out in our management systems. Also, following employee skill development and career progress supports human resources initiatives across the company.
During the year, about 1,200 employees completed EH&S training courses through our e-learning system. In 2005, we plan to expand the system to incorporate new courses promoting the use of our new EH&S incident management system, as well as assist with our internal operating training progression systems for our Alberta coal plants and our Sarnia gas plant. These will serve as pilots for the rest of the fleet.
