In 2016, PMC upgraded the Hazard Prevention program (HPP) to better provide information and education regarding workplace hazards. The HPP formalizes the expectation for safeguarding personal health and safety and protects workers and visitors from worksite health and safety hazards. It provides consistent processes for the proactive identification, assessment and control of health and safety hazards and to manage those hazards organization wide.
The HPP breaks down into three steps:
- Hazard Identification is the process of actively observing workplace hazards, such as unsafe conditions, behaviours and flaws in our process or program, that may lead to worker injury or illness. An everyday example of hazard identification might be a person noting a patch of ice on their driveway.
- Hazard Assessment is the process of understanding the likelihood of a hazard causing an injury or illness. This allows PMC to risk rank the hazards in order to prioritize the actions required to minimize or eliminate the hazard. For example, the patch of ice on a driveway is assessed as an area where many people walk, posing a slipping hazard for friends and family.
- Hazard Control is an action or process applied to the source and/or the worker to eliminate the cause of the hazard. In the same example, a hazard control could be putting salt down on the driveway to prevent the ice from returning.
Using this three step process, the HPP provides context, direction and practical guidance for all levels of employees, including leadership, to consistently and safely complete their work.
The Hazard Prevention program provides employees with standardized training on how to identify, assess and implement effective controls to mitigate hazards.
