City offers up incentives to keep staff and Iqaluit safe

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

In an effort to boost the municipality’s safety record, Iqaluit has kicked off a competition aimed at inspiring employees to show up for work and avoid getting into accidents.

Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik hopes the new contest will instill pride in the municipality’s 110 workers, especially in the public works department, which she says suffers plenty of public criticism when accidents happen, but receives little applause when workers do a good job.

“If we’re striving for a safer workplace, and that happens, why not recognize it,” Sheutiapik said. “I think they [city staff] have to be recognized when they do good.”

Two city workers received plum prizes at an informal awards ceremony on April 19 at the curling rink. Prizes included return tickets to Ottawa and hundreds of dollars in bonus cheques. After the ceremony, Sheutiapik admitted that some residents might ask why the city is giving employees an incentive to meet their job requirements, rather than expecting them to do so without added perks.

Sheutiapik defended the contest, suggesting that she and administration were bringing a new, positive approach to making Iqaluit a safer place to work and live.

Sheutiapik added the municipality was also setting an example for businesses to follow, and invited other organizations to donate prizes, like First Air’s contribution of free flights to Ottawa. She said the Government of Nunavut should also consider starting a workplace safety and attendance program involving similar prizes.

Ian Fremantle, chief administrative officer, said the municipality didn’t feel pressed to start the contest, but decided such a program would be in line with municipal contests already in place in southern Canada.

He said the workplace safety and attendance contest will turn around a deadly trend that has left the muncipality’s image in tatters. In the past three years, municipal drivers have been involved in three fatal accidents, one of which killed a four-year-old girl while she was crossing the road.

“We’ve got a pretty poor record for safety,” Fremantle said in an interview after the ceremony. “I think it [the contest] is a bit of an incentive for staff, one, to come regularly to work, two, to be safer in the workplace.”

But administration expects the contest will do more than improve the city’s safety record. Fremantle suggested the contest and its positive safety spin-offs will appease insurance companies, which currently refuse to provide coverage to the municipality because of its history of accidents.

City driver Arlooktoo Takoonagak, who won a return ticket to Ottawa and other prizes for his perfect safety record over the past three months, said the contest has more value than what’s in the prizes.

“It makes us feel good,” Takoonagak said. “This does help [morale] a lot.”

Takoonagak, a heavy equipment operator who was one of two workers picked randomly from several eligible candidates, said he managed to win by following a few simple rules. After losing his licence temporarily last year, he said he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t go out partying, and he makes sure that he’s well prepared to respond when he’s on call.

But he said residents of Iqaluit shouldn’t expect drivers to be able to avoid accidents all the time.

“There’s nothing we can do when accidents happen,” he said. “We’re aware of what’s around us. But sometimes kids run out, appear out of nowhere, really fast, and there’s nothing you can do (but) just try to prevent it.”

Firefighter Tina Hallett also won a safety and attendance prize. City employees will be eligible for more prizes every three months.