Hello everybody and happy holidays! As you work to complete your current HSEp topics and begin to look at your topics for the upcoming program year, we wanted to take this time to walk you through the topic-approval process.
You can find all the Excellence topics in the HSEP - Health and Safety Topics Guide. This document is uploaded in the “Program Resources” section of both the Dunk Excellence Portal and Dunk Small Business Portals.
When selecting topics, it is important to understand the requirements of the topics before making a final decision. This can be accomplished using the HSEP - Health and Safety Topics Guide. Another tip at understanding what is required is to look at the evidence boards to see what kind of evidence you will need to provide when you are going to
submit the topic for evaluation. For those in the SB HSEp, give us a call and we can help you with this as you only have access to you preselected topics for the year.
Acceptable selection rationale would be if the topic is completely new (WSIB preferred), contains significant gaps (not just out of legislation, but nothing has been updated and no one is following the current program), or there were significant changes to the workplace (i.e. 40000 square foot addition built onto existing workplace). The WSIB has eluded that they will only be allowing new topics in the upcoming years, but nothing has been finalized so this may be your last chance to take topics where an existing program can be taken to address those gaps. Dunk will let you know if and when these changes come into effect.
Once you have a final list of topics (1 – 5 topics are allowed per program year), it is time to complete your workplan for those in the “Regular” HSEp. For those in the SB HSEp, all you need to do is go in and select your topics right in the WSIB Digital Portal. Remember, you also need to send Dunk an email with what topics you have selected so we can confirm and approve them.
If in the “regular” HSEp, you would need to complete a workplan as always. You can find the Dunk Workplan template in the “Program Resources” section of the Dunk Excellence Portal. The document will ask you to complete a Member Overview so we get an idea of your line of business and also includes additional sheets for each topic. The topic sheets are broken down by your topic rationale at the top and your proposed implementation plan at the bottom. If your topic is not new to your organization, we ask that you complete the Topic Approval Form that can also be found in the “Program Resources” section of the Dunk Excellence Portal. Dunk has recently improved the workplan to make it easier to complete, especially for new topics.
After justifying your topic selection, the Workplan asks members to plan the implementation of their topics via the 5 Steps of Implementation. We recommend that members are specific when filling out this section. For example, rather than saying “workers will be trained on the requirements”, specify which workplace parties will receive training, how will the training be conducted and what will the training encompass.
Once your Workplan is completed, please send it to excellence@systems24-7.com, where we will review your topics for approval and provide recommendations to strengthen your implementation plan.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to email us at excellence@systems24-7.com or give us a call at 1-866-754-8839 and we would be happy to assist you at every stage of your HSEp journey.