City Absenteeism & Lost-Time Injuries Continue to Decline

Lost-time injuries for City workers were at the lowest-recorded level in 2015, while overall average days lost to absenteeism also continued to decline and remain well below the national average for public sector employees.

“We are encouraged with the positive direction reflected in this report,” says Catherine Gryba, General Manager of Corporate Performance.  “We always look for ways to be more efficient and at the same time make health and safety a top priority in the work we do for our citizens.”

The results highlighting successes in health, safety and absenteeism are outlined in a report to be presented June 13, 2016 to the Standing Policy Committee on Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services.

The report* to the Committee shows:

-Incidents of injury/illness from the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) decreased from 121 in 2014 to 102 in 2015. 
-In 2015, lost-time injuries reached the lowest recorded frequency of 3.70 lost time days.  This is a 20% decrease from the 2014 reported lost-time injury frequency of 4.60.
-In 2015, the COS total, as well as the City (18%), Boards (10%) and Police (25%), had reductions in lost-time injuries.
-There was an overall decrease of 11% in injury severity and resultant number of work days lost per 100 employees for COS.
-Overall, for all civic employees, average days lost to absenteeism, total hours of absenteeism, and total costs of absenteeism was reduced in 2015.  The City’s average days lost is below the Statistics Canada public sector.
-Costs, hours and incidents of medium-term absences (more than 10 days and not long-term disability) continue to decrease over the last few years. 
-The majority of absenteeism is driven by short-term absences at 64% of total cost.  Incidents of short-term absences continue to increase at the City.

“These trends are the result of an increasingly successful safety culture at the City that values the wellbeing of our employees,” Gryba says.  “The trends also demonstrate everyone working for the City of Saskatoon wants to make safety a key aspect of civic operations – from beginning to end.”

Proper management of absenteeism supports the City’s Strategic Goal of Continuous Improvement and being the best-managed city in Canada.

*Throughout the Committee report, the City of Saskatoon (City) is used to denote all areas that are under the direction of the City Manager.  COS is used to denote the overall grouping of the City of Saskatoon, Saskatoon Police Service and the civic Boards. The Boards are comprised of the Saskatoon Public Library, Mendel Art Gallery (Remai Modern), SaskTel Centre and TCU Place.