“Safety Inspections – hamburgers – being stranded on a life boat”
What do you think of when you hear these three things? Does a Health and Safety Committee meeting come to mind? It was for Wills Transfer!
Every month, the Health and Safety Committee of Wills Transfer meets via teleconference to discuss monthly safety inspections, review current safety training, bring forward any new safety business, outline any incidents and near-misses in that month, and check off any pending action items.
This month (October 2017) was a face-to-face meeting at the Ottawa Wills Warehouse (3100 Swansea Cres) , which included a tour of the warehouse, and hamburgers for lunch. The warehouse expansion (Phase 2) has a capacity of 117,800 sq ft at this point. Business has expanded rapidly since Phase 2 opened, and most of the expansion is now occupied. There will be 3,500 new racking spaces within the next month to accommodate more rack-able inventory. Currently most of Phase 2 is bulk stage space.
As for “being stranded on a life boat“; this was a group exercise to demonstrate that working as a team can achieve better results than using individual answers. Each member was given a list of 15 items to rank from 1 (highest importance) to 15 (least important) of life saving tools that could be used whilst stranded in the Atlantic Ocean on a life boat. After ranking the list individually, the room was divided into two groups to rank the same list as a group. Sharing ideas and strategies is a key part of working as a team at Wills Transfer. This is encouraged and can usually elicit very positive results in the workplace.
