Wednesday, November 4, 2020

File the Incident Report!

Here’s an often overlooked way to help make your workplace safer

By Geoff Dueck Thiessen, Regional Director

“The biggest frustration is that people aren’t filling out incident reports!” This is a statement I’ve heard many times from Local 306 members Monica Ginter and Ronda Alexiuk. Monica and Ronda are educational assistants (EAs) who both serve on the Workplace Safety and Health Committee (WSHC), Monica at Garden Valley School Division and Ronda at Hanover School Division.

Monica and Ronda know that EAs have stressful jobs. They are aware that many EAs endure verbal and physical violence to varying degrees on a daily basis. They both hope to use their positions to make the job safer. Did you know that EAs can help Ronda and Monica improve safety simply by filling out the proper report after being involved in a violent incident?

4 Reasons Why It’s Important to File

It’s the law. Every employer has a legal obligation to have a violence prevention policy, educate employees on the risk of violence, investigate violent incidents, collect incident reports, and prepare an annual report compiling all of the incidents along with the control measures implemented as a result of investigations.
Be eligible for workers compensation. Should you need to file for workers compensation, an incident report is critical. The more accurate and timely the report, the less likely your WCB claim will get denied or tied up in a lengthy investigation.
Create a safer workplace. For the WSHC to make recommendations to the employer for improved procedures and policies, it has to have an accurate idea of what is happening in the workplace. An employer is going to have a very difficult time knowing what the problems are accurately if you do not report incidents.
Improve behaviour management. I have on many occasions heard EAs vent frustrations about the lack of consequences for violent behaviour in schools. But to be fair, the school division can’t fix what they don’t know is broken. By filing an incident report, you take that reason away.

5 Reasons Why EAs Don’t File

You might think the incident isn’t serious enough. Small incidents build up over time and can have a cumulative traumatic effect on you. Another problem is that a seemingly small incident can have surprising injury impacts that crop up later. For example, a head impact can lead to concussion symptoms, which don’t appear until several days later.
You don’t have time. EAs are paid almost entirely for student contact time, meaning that there is almost no time left for you to take care of other administrative tasks, such as filling out violent incident reports. In some schools, principals and resource teachers understand the importance of reports and safety and make sure there is enough time. Unfortunately, in many situations, this is not prioritized. You don’t want to stay late for free, or work through a rest break, and so you don’t file a report.
You don’t want to be a bother. Make a stink, cause trouble, stir the pot, cause a ruckus, rock the boat. . . . This is often an assertiveness issue. Please remember: you matter!
You don’t know where the reports are or how to fill them out. The law is clear about this. Employees must be educated, policies must be posted, and incidents must be reported. Yet in many cases, employees say that they aren’t familiar with the policy, don’t know where the reporting forms are, or in what circumstances to fill out an incident report.
You’re discouraged from doing so. The law is very clear about this too. Dissuading an employee from filing an incident report is a big no-no. Misinformation, guilt trips, and hiding reports unfortunately do on occasion happen. Employers can get in big trouble for this, and in addition can be held accountable for suppressing WCB claims.

We all understand that workplaces suffer from influxes of stress. Schools, for example, often struggle from shortages of funding and time, while needs seem to be continually on the rise. Education is also one of the key sectors identified in the Workplace Safety and Health Act where violence in the workplace rules apply.

In retail, sick calls and spikes in sales don’t wait for the best time, and those pressures can push people to work too hard and skip breaks. And any time you’re working in a job focussed on serving others, especially the vulnerable, taking time to fill a report is tough.

It’s true that there are no magic bullets to fix the problems, and everyone needs to pull in the same direction.

In the midst of all of this, it’s absolutely important that everyone fills out an incident report for every instance of violence and injury. This includes contact violence (minor and major), verbal violence, and even near misses (a chair is thrown but doesn’t make contact). It also includes slips and falls, strains from lifting, and repetitive strain injuries.

If you think a health and safety issue needs attention at your workplace, contact a member of your WHSC. They want to help!

File the Incident Report!

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