Safety
Achieving an injury-free workplace hinges on doing the little things right to ultimately ensure the safety of our staff and the public. At Encana, we expect everyone to take a steadfast approach to safety.
Creating a premier safety culture
Working safely is just the way we do things at Encana. We require everyone working with us to understand and comply with our policies and practices. These policies and practices start by applying our risk management principles in our safety planning to ensure we are analyzing and managing safety risks. We expect everyone working for us to speak up if they see an unsafe practice and we ask employees and contractors to contribute ideas for improving our safety performance. We’ve created a safety culture at Encana where we are continuously evolving to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Safety all around
Our Safe 360 program underscores the importance of identifying risks and being aware in all directions – whether it’s hazards around a work site or the safety considerations required in a project’s design. Safe 360 also reflects our commitment to safety at home and on the road. We want our employees to be safe in all aspects of their lives.
The Safe 360 program is designed to promote a culture where:
- our safety philosophy extends to our personal lives and activities, such as driving
- everyone watches out for one another and is expected to speak up if unsafe practices are occurring
- people are encouraged to identify potential safety risks and contribute ideas for improvements
Drive Safe Program expands
Managing the risks associated with motor vehicle incidents is an important part of our overall approach to risk management. Motor vehicle incidents have the potential to affect the health, safety and welfare of our most valuable resource – our people. These incidents are largely preventable, yet we continue to face the challenge of reducing their frequency each year.
Our goal is to safeguard staff and mitigate the risks related to motor vehicle incidents while ensuring maximum productivity.
Throughout 2010, our Drive Safe team analyzed motor vehicle incident data in an effort to better understand and manage our most common driving-related risks. They identified three focus areas: vehicle backing, wildlife and adverse weather conditions. Proactively identifying these issues enables us to continue to develop comprehensive driver training objectives and practices focused on improving the awareness and skill level of our workforce when behind the wheel.
What we’ve done
- expanded Environment, Health & Safety development and training for leaders and staff
- effective gathering, analysis and reporting of leading safety indicators
- continued effort to reduce motor vehicle incidents through our Drive Safe program
- completed audit reviews and inspections
- expanded safety training programs for leaders from field to office staff
Where we’re headed
- develop better ways of gathering, analyzing and reporting on safety indicators
- continue to enhance safety training for employees, contractors and leaders and measure success
“It’s my responsibility to ensure that investors and other stakeholders have confidence in Encana, its financial performance, its ability to do its job in the safest possible manner, and that its corporate governance practices and policies are effective in assessing and mitigating potential risks and the impacts arising from its activities.”
2010 Safety performance (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
| Recordable | 2008 Incidents | 2008 Frequency | 2009 Incidents | 2009 Frequency | 2010 Incidents | 2010 Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 11 | 0.31 | 21 | 0.56 | 8 | 0.20 |
| Contractors | 222 | 0.94 | 146 | 0.76 | 213 | 0.76 |
| Total Encana | 233 | 0.86 | 167 | 0.74 | 221 | 0.68 |
| Lost Time | ||||||
| Employees | 4 | 0.11 | 5 | 0.16 | 2 | 0.05 |
| Contractors | 61 | 0.26 | 30 | 0.17 | 48 | 0.17 |
| Total Encana | 65 | 0.24 | 35 | 0.17 | 50 | 0.15 |
Total Injury frequency (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
- (1) Recordable injuries include total permanent disabilities, lost work day cases, restricted work cases, medical treatment cases and fatalities.
- (2) Estimation of contractor hours is based on gross operational and gross capital expenditures using Canada Association of Petroleum Producers 2008 conversion factors for contractors working in Canada and American Petroleum Institute 2009 conversion factors for contractors working in the USA.
- (3) Frequency is based on 200,000 exposure hours.
- (4) We calculate exposure hours based on US dollars in the Canadian and USA Divisions.
- (5) Lost time injury frequency and recordable injury frequency rates were calculated based upon known and recorded injuries as at January 24, 2011.
- (6) Frequency equals (number of occurrences X 200,000)/exposure hours.
