How Phil Verster led a safety culture revolution
About 10 years ago, Phil Verster, the CEO of Metrolinx, had a “career-changing moment.” Verster was working in the United Kingdom as the managing director for Network Rail when one of the front-line workers for the company was struck by an electric train and seriously hurt.
“I went to the hospital and sitting next to his hospital bed with his family was just eye-opening,” explains Verster, who says that’s the moment when safety went from being important to “an absolute duty”. He vowed to improve safety in the lives of employees both at home and at work. “We have to make them safer, and really care about your people, and for me, that was personally a moment of change.”
Canada’s Safest Employers Awards recently honoured Verster with the CEO of the Year award for his work with Metrolinx. It’s the largest transportation organization in Canada with a $75 billion project portfolio. He joined Metrolinx about five years ago and during that time he’s led a safety culture revolution.
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The lost time injury rate when he assumed the position was 4.8. Verster says over the years it has steadily fallen and it now sits at 0.6, which is eight times lower. The improvement can be attributed to investigating root causes of incidents and updating procedures, but that’s only part of the process of creating a culture of safety.
Metrolinx is a complex transportation organization that employs many different contractors and Verster believes safety starts at the top. That’s why he helped create the safety, health and environment team which meets every quarter. It’s made up of all the CEOs at the big contracting firms that Metrolinx works with.
“It's creating the CEO-level focus and interest in what safety can do for the organization, and what it can do for the people, and for the industry as a whole,” he said. “And that has been phenomenal.”
Verster has also overseen the implementation of having a safety moment at the beginning of every meeting, following an indigenous land acknowledgement. It’s a moment where anyone can share a safety story, lesson, or insight. It can be something as small as an admission of jaywalking or changing winter tyres, but it can also be more serious, like a workplace incident.
Read more: Contract worker killed after being pinned under rail car
“We make it a point for people to reflect and make sure that there's some other action taken to improve that. And it's a simple technique that brings safety to top of mind in your organization,” says Verster.
Another initiative he has overseen is encouraging employees to take first aid training so that they can improve safety at the workplace, but also in their personal lives.
“Safety never stops” is a Metrolinx slogan you can see on Go Transit and other forms of public transportation in the Greater Toronto Area. “Safety is a way of living. Safety has to be a way of living,” says Verster, and it’s been his way of life for at least the past 10 years.
