“Because it’s not enough to simply maintain a safety program, no matter how comprehensive it is," says Kate Dodd, Mount Washington’s director of finance. "You must create a culture of safety, and to do so you need measurable and defined steps. That’s what COR helps you develop.”
Dodd is convinced that a safety culture is crucial for ski resorts. “We tend to hire young, relatively inexperienced workers who perform a wide variety of physical duties and need to be thinking about safety at all times, not just going through the motions,” she says. Establishing a safety culture is arguably far more difficult for ski resorts than for other hospitality venues. “The seasonal nature of the employment makes any kind of operational consistency a real challenge,” she says. “In our case, we have 800 staff members during winter, and as many as 700 are laid off in April. One of COR’s strengths is that it involves everyone and promotes a feeling of inclusion, which is the foundation of a true safety culture.”
Mount Washington, which is located on the eastern edge of Vancouver Island, was the first ski resort in BC to be certified by the nationally recognized Certificate of Recognition program. Dodd first learned about COR when she was a go2 board member during the program's inception. “Early on, we realized ski resorts would be an ideal testing ground for COR because they contain so many elements that warrant scrutiny: retail, food service, outdoor activity, equipment operation, you name it,” she says. “COR auditors were recruited and trained last spring, and Mount Washington underwent the first full audits in early December along with another resort and several hotels.”
The auditor spent five days at Mount Washington, studying safety programs, interviewing staff and touring the resort, which has facilities plentiful enough to accommodate more than 4,000 guests. “The auditing process is heavily weighted towards observation [of staff working], not just reviewing documents,” says Dodd.
Although achieving COR certification might seem like icing on the cake for a business as safety-conscious as Mount Washington, COR’s financial incentives — the annual 15 per cent rebate on WorkSafeBC base premiums for successful completion of both the Safety Management COR and Return-to-Work COR — were especially desirable to Dodd and her colleagues. “Last summer, WorkSafeBC raised the ski resort industry’s base rate because so many injury claims are being filed in this sector,” she explains. “We ultimately want to reduce our premiums, but that’s a three- to five-year process, and in the meantime COR rebates help our bottom line.”
Because certificate holders must have an external audit performed every fourth year and an internal maintenance audit performed in years two and three in order to keep their certification, Dodd says management and staff are motivated to continue their best practices.
Based on what she learned from her COR audit, Dodd has advice for other ski resorts interested in certification. “Focus on the Return-to-Work COR because it’ll give you the biggest bang in the shortest space of time,” she says. “Also, although COR auditors identify workplace hazards and help you develop safer work procedures, you should allow staff to assess hazards and participate in developing safety guidelines too. That way, everyone is invested in the certification.”
