Environmental health and safety
Environmental Health and Safety provides programming and services to ensure the health and safety of the university community. By creating safe environments where we all follow regulatory requirements and policies, we can make a healthy and safe campus for all.
University Health and Safety policy statement
The University of Manitoba adopted a revised Health and Safety Policy in 2011. The revision retains the University’s commitment to providing a safe and healthy workplace for staff, students and visitors but clarifies the responsibility and accountability for health and safety is an integral part of the duties of supervisory staff at all levels, including the senior executive.
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Working alone or in isolation
These procedures ensure that emergency services can be provided in a timely manner should the individual working alone or in isolation need assistance or fail to communicate they are safe.
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Safety and health committees
A workplace safety and health committee is a team of people who have agreed to work together to accomplish a shared goal.
Training
The environmental health and safety office offers a variety of training seminars and workshops to University of Manitoba staff and students.
New Worker General Orientation Training
The Province of Manitoba requires that all new workers – either new to the University or new to a particular workplace at the University – receive a health and safety orientation to ensure workers are aware of how to deal with safety issues and minimize the risk of injury for themselves and others in the workplace.
The Province requires documentation that workers have received and understood this training. All new workers must take the New Worker General Orientation (NWGO) test and receive a score of 70 per cent or higher to complete training. There is no limit on the number of times a worker can take the test.
How to complete NWGO training
You must follow two steps in order to complete NWGO training:
- Read the NWGO Presentation (PDF). If you would like to arrange an in-class presentation for large groups, contact the Environmental Health and Safety Office.
- Complete the test by logging into UM Learn (you will need to enrol in the course through the ‘Self Registration’ tab).
How to access the NWGO test on UMLearn
- Login to UM Learn using your UMNetID and password.
- For personnel who are not eligible to claim a UMNetID (i.e. a volunteer, contract worker, visiting academic, or sessional who is engaged or supported by your department but who is not currently a University of Manitoba employee), please fill out the Individual Sponsored Account form. We suggest submitting the form at least two weeks before the person's start date so that the account is ready to use.
- For personnel who previously had access with their UMNetID, please fill out the Individual Sponsored Account form to reactivate your UMLearn account.
- On the main page, click ‘Self Registration’ and look for ‘New Worker General Orientation’ in the course offering name list.
- Click on ‘New Worker General Orientation’ and complete the registration process.
- You must receive a score of 70 per cent or higher in order to pass the test and complete training. Upon successful completion of the test, a PDF certificate will be generated for you to save and print.
Please note: the system will take 5 minutes after the quiz has been completed for the certificate to become available. - You can access your certificate at any time on UMLearn under “Assessments” when you click “Awards.”
Health and Safety General Orientation
The Health and Safety General Orientation provides an introduction to the health and safety programs in place at the University of Manitoba. You may work through it at your own pace and complete the acknowledgement at the end of the presentation.
The information provided is general in nature and highlights many of the programs in place—It is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all elements of the program.
Safety for Supervisors
The Safety for Supervisors resource is available to assist supervisors in understanding their responsibilities. In order to complete the program, all supervisors must pass a short multiple-choice test on the duties of supervisors under Manitoba Health and Safety legislation.
Please note: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, there will not be any in-person training. All training will be conducted online until further notice.
You can register for a training session by visiting the Learning and Organizational Development website and clicking on the session you would like to attend.
If you would like to arrange an in-class presentation for large groups, contact the Environmental Health and Safety Office.
Before taking the test, please review the Safety for Supervisors Training presentation (PDF) and the Training Reference Links document (DOC).
How to access Safety for Supervisors test on UMLearn
- Login to UM Learn using your UMNetID and password.
- For personnel who are not eligible to claim a UMNetID (i.e. a volunteer, contract worker, visiting academic, or sessional who is engaged or supported by your department but who is not currently a University of Manitoba employee), please fill out the Individual Sponsored Account form. We suggest submitting the form at least two weeks before the person's start date so that the account is ready to use.
- For personnel who previously had access with their UMNetID, please fill out the Individual Sponsored Account form to reactivate your UMLearn account.
- On the main page, click ‘Self Registration’ and look for ‘Safety for Supervisors in the course offering name list.
- Click on ‘Safety for Supervisors and complete the registration process.
- You must receive a score of 53 per cent (8/15) or higher in order to pass the test and complete training. Upon successful completion of the test, a PDF certificate will be generated for you to save and print.
Please note: the system will take 5 minutes after the quiz has been completed for the certificate to become available. - You can access your certificate at any time on UMLearn under “Assessments” when you click “Awards.”
There is no limit to how any times you can take the test. If you have any concerns about completing the test, please contact the Environmental Health and Safety Office.
General health and safety information
Effective April 1, 2014 amendments to The Workplace Safety and Health Act, Workplace Safety and Health Regulation and Administrative Penalty Regulation strengthen workplace safety and health law by:
- Providing immediate fines for activities presenting an imminent risk to workers or for backsliding to unsafe conditions after complying with an improvement order
- Penalizing employers that prevent workers form exercising their legislated safety and health rights
- Revising and clarifying requirements for workplace safety and health committees
- Providing Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health the authority to issue a stop-work order to prevent an employer from engaging in a specific task anywhere in the province if that task may place workers at imminent risk or serious injury or illness
- Clarifying employers’ duties to provide workplace-specific safety and health orientation before a new worker begins work at a workplace or returns to a workplace where the hazards have changed during the workers absence
Under the legislation, employers are required to ensure each safety and health representative, or safety and health committee member is trained to competently fulfill their duties.
Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health is required to take into account information provided by affected parties when making a decision with respect to appeals, exemptions and variances.
These new and amended provisions of the act and regulations incorporate changes recommended by the Minister’s Advisory Council on Workplace Safety and Health during the 2012 five-year review of the Act.
The Province’s Workplace Safety and Health Branch have provided the two bulletins highlighting some changes.
If you have any questions, please contact the Environmental Safety and Health Office (ESHO) at 204-474-6633 or the Workplace Safety and Health Branch at 204-945-3446 or visit the Safe Manitoba website
Safe work procedures
Safe work procedures are required by legislation when the risk of injury to workers performing a job task cannot be eliminated by effective work/workplace design, work process or equipment. These procedures help successfully carry out various UM governance requirements and responsibilities.
Safe work procedures must be developed and implemented for work tasks carried out at any workplace where there are risks associated with work tasks that may cause injury or illness. They are developed by summarizing important information identified from an assessment of a work task.
Employers
Employers are responsible for ensuring safe work procedures are:
- Based on information collected by a risk assessment. This is completed using the job hazard analysis.
- Developed in consultation with the Safety and Health Committee. It is also recommended that safe work procedures are developed with the workers performing the task.
- Approved by management (usually a dean, department head or director).
- Fully understood by the workers and supervisors through training. Workers and supervisors must demonstrate competence in carrying out procedures.
- Readily available at all times for workers to reference.
Supervisors
Supervisors are responsible for:
- Ensuring workers perform tasks safely in a manner consistent with safe work procedures and provided training.
- Regularly reviewing safe work procedures to ensure they are accurate and effective. For example: if a task changes, the procedures relating to the change must also be updated.
Job hazard analysis
Job hazard analysis is a method for performing an assessment of a job task and is critical to developing good safe work procedures. A job hazard analysis must be completed before a safe work procedure can be written and involves breaking a job task into steps to help identify hazards and appropriate control measures.
To conduct a job hazard analysis you must:
- Break the job task into its basic steps (describe a few keywords—don’t include ‘safety steps’ at this point).
- Identify the safety and health hazards at each of the steps.
- Determine control measures to eliminate, substitute or engineer out the hazards you have identified.
Critical job inventory
A critical job inventory helps identify job tasks that require a safe work procedure (and job hazard analysis). These are specific tasks that are likely to cause an injury or may even cause severe injury or death due to the nature of the work being performed.
If it’s a large workplace, start by:
- Identifying departments or work areas.
- Listing different occupations or work processes within those departments or work areas.
- Listing jobs or tasks within those occupations and work processes.
Contact us
Environmental Health and Safety
Room 191 Extended Education Complex
406 University Crescent
University of Manitoba (Fort Garry campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2 Canada