Written by Patrick Hauser
The 2023 Saskatchewan Federation of Labour Occupational Health and Safety Conference was held in Saskatoon, on September 13th to 15th. Twenty-three ASPA members attended the conference this year to take in sessions focusing on prevention of violence, psychologically safe workplaces, OHS committees, OHS legislation, among others. ASPA sent a short survey to these 23 members to gather their anonymous feedback on the conference to determine the value of attending, evaluate the learning opportunities provided to our members, and whether they would attend again in the future.
In all, 13 members completed the short and anonymous evaluation survey, and ten did not, for a 57% response rate. From those who did complete the survey, most of the feedback was positive, but not all of it. The following are the highlights from the survey feedback:
Most attended the session ‘Building Psychologically Safe Workplaces’ session, with ‘Prevention of Workplace Violence’ and ‘OHS Act & Regulations’ being second and third respectively.
From the positive comments respondents reported receiving some good resources from the facilitators to use and reference. Others noted the importance of knowing ones’ rights as well as reporting safety or security concerns in a timely manner. Most respondents were happy with their facilitator, were glad the examples related to actual workplace environments, and thought there was benefit to them in attending their session at the conference. Most respondents appreciated the opportunity were thankful that ASPA covered the registration costs.
From the negative comments, some respondents did not think their session was interactive enough, or did not allow for enough time to complete interactive elements or work through scenarios and associated questions. There were also comments about a lack of operational technology, with at least one facilitator just reading from notes and no presentation to make it more engaging, and possibly adlibbing some erroneous details. There were also a few comments about union and CUPE business notices taking considerable time, which was not information attendees wanted or expected to hear at an OHS conference.
A neutral comment was that much of the information presented was aimed toward supervisors or managers, and not really useful to frontline workers. Nine respondents said ‘yes’ they would attend this conference again, while only one said ‘no’ they would not, and three said ‘maybe.’ Also, 11 out of 13 said they would recommend others to attend this conference in the future. There were no comments at all about the facility, food or refreshments.
In summary, it was obvious from the feedback that one’s experience depended heavily on which session they attended. There were some good sessions, and some that were not so highly rated. But, generally respondents appreciated the opportunity to attend and got something out of it.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to ASPA at aspa@aspasask.ca or call us at 306.966.2471