New plan increases inspections, tackles occupational diseases and motor vehicle injuries, and formalizes family involvement in court sentencing
 
With four items on the 10-point occupational health and safety plan completed, the Alberta government is adding four new initiatives to help keep working Albertans safe and healthy.

“Work-related diseases and vehicle incidents are killing more workers than injuries are,” said Employment and Immigration Minister Thomas Lukaszuk. “It is time we took steps to reduce these work-related fatalities.”
The new initiatives are:

Identifying new ways to reduce work-related motor vehicle incidents - a new best practices guide and e-learning program, Driving for Work: Developing Safe Practices for Employers and Workers, will help employers develop effective safe driving programs for their employees.  

Identifying new ways to reduce work-related diseases - Lukaszuk has instructed Employment and Immigration to establish an occupational disease prevention program.
Formalizing the process to ensure that family input is sought on each and every occasion that involves a creative sentence.

Making the enforcement system even stronger - hiring an additional eight Occupational Health and Safety Officers will bring the total to 102 and will result in a stronger presence on Alberta worksites. 

Lukaszuk launched a 10-point plan for Occupational Health and Safety in July.  He confirmed that as of November 8, four items from that list will have been completed. These include a stronger compliance system, a template for employer records, a website with records of companies and a review of the Work Safe Alberta initiative. On November 8, Lukaszuk will be hosting a forum with a number of industry and labour stakeholders, the first since 2005. The remaining six items are still underway.

TELUS and the Rotman School of Management released their third annual study on Canadian IT security, revealing that Canadian companies experienced a 29 per cent increase in security breaches from 2009 to 2010. The study also found that the annual cost of these security breaches dropped considerably from $834,000 to $179,508 during the same one-year period.

According to the survey, government entities are experiencing twice the number of breaches than companies in the private sector, with an almost 74 per cent increase in one year. The increase can be explained by a significant investment in detection and response capabilities, which enable greater visibility into breaches and lower associated costs. In addition, the study reveals a growing trend toward sophisticated attacks focused on customer and citizen data. Research from TELUS Security Labs indicates that attackers are seeking out sensitive data that can be sold or repurposed for financial gain.

Additionally, this year's study finds one in four Canadian organizations are blocking access to social networking sites, citing security as the primary driver. However, in both the private and public sectors, organizations that block these sites experienced no improvement in security and could suffer a worsening of security as employees attempt to circumvent the block.  

"We see a need to maintain control in an ever-changing threat environment, where attacks are designed to penetrate security using the latest technologies and processes," says Dr. Walid Hejazi, Professor of Business Economics, Rotman School of Management. "However, our research indicates that the adoption of social networking in the workplace is simply not a contributing factor to breach increases. The best course of action is to instil a sense of trust and educate employees on how to engage in social networking appropriately."

"Canadian organizations are optimizing for today, but are still not doing enough to prepare for tomorrow," says Yogen Appalraju, vice-president, TELUS Security Solutions. "While the investment in defensive technology is proving effective with a decrease in breach costs, organizations are experiencing more focused attacks. There needs to be continued, proactive investment in security to reduce the number of breaches, to minimize costs to organizations and most importantly, to mitigate the risk to sensitive corporate data."

The 2010 TELUS/Rotman Joint Study on Canadian IT Security Practices also uncovered insights in additional areas including:

• Proliferation of smartphones and the impacts on security in the workplace
• Reduction of IT security budgets
• State of compensation of security teams
• Impacts of outsourcing on security for Canadian organizations

For more information on the study, visit telus.com/securitystudy.

The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world's most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

There is a general feeling that when someone is promoted to a management position that they are a naturally a leader. Or if someone is a good manager they must also be a good leader. Some people even equate the two believing that a manager is a leader and a leader is a manager. In our view the two are very different.

Leo Tolstoy wrote that “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Perhaps this quote can shed light on explaining why many consultants today misunderstand the individual needs of the corporation. Like families, no two companies have the same sets of problems, issues, and causes of unhappiness. Each solution has to be unique to the company itself; in other words, every unhappy and inefficient corporation needs a solution unique to its own characteristics.