Deltera health and safety specialist looks to change jobsite culture

In the 11 years she has worked as a Deltera health and safety specialist, Cheryl Rowsell has seen a lot of changes on construction sites, mostly for the better.

“I can see the generational change and I’m not getting the pushback I once did.”

She is referring to the resistance she encountered, and to some extent still encounters, from workers when enforcing jobsite safety regulations.

Rowsell has the authority to issue safety violation tickets, order workers off site or even close down an entire trade section for safety breaches, such as not being tied off.

Workers who continuously flaunt safety procedures can be ticketed and fined as much as $500. Those proceeds are donated to Threads of Life, a counselling support service for families when a member of family has been killed on the job or is suffering from life-altering injury or occupational illness, she points out.

Trades are also becoming stringent with employees who flaunt safety procedures.

“So that is another positive change.”

Although describing her role as an “enforcer” of safety regulations, Rowsell prefers to use education when those regulations aren’t been adhered to, perhaps unknowingly.

“I don’t come in with horns blazing. You have to show respect to the workers. I try not to lose my temper.”

For the most part, that strategy works and helps diffuse what could be confrontational situations. As an example, she cites the time she told an equipment operator he had to be tied off. Even after she showed him the specific regulation, the worker gave her a hard time.

“Later he came and apologized and said, ‘You’re right.’”

In her role as an enforcer, Rowsell does draws on her experiences in an earlier career in law enforcement, particularly the need to keep well documented and copious notes.

For more than a decade she was a special constable with Toronto Housing, with full arrest and collection evidence powers under the Criminal Code on the agency’s housing sites.

“This power is not 24/7 like the police have,” says Rowsell, explaining it was restricted to working on those sites.

Being a special constable was not easy and eventually she decided to take a severance package and move on.

Eventually, she obtained a position as a Tridel customer care representative performing pre-delivery inspections with purchasers of their soon-to-be occupied new home.

From there she transitioned to becoming a pre-delivery inspection specialist, then a construction site co-ordinator and then a construction assistant superintendent. With each transition, she increased her knowledge of construction.

“I wanted a change and it was good fit for me,” says Rowsell on why she decided to become a health and safety specialist. In that role she has multiple duties.

Just a sampling of those tasks includes inspections of fall arrest equipment, plus tools and vehicles, making sure workers have the proper training to use that equipment, setting up onsite fall rescue training, investigating and reporting all incidents and injuries, and reporting critical ones to the Ministry of Labour.

“I do my job to save lives and to change the culture. Safety can’t be compromised,” says Rowsell, emphasizing one of the Deltera’s core values.