Onlia Safety Wall of Shame

What started as a general discussion about safety quickly turned into an unveiling of bad habits, some more alarming than others. In the form of sticky notes posted up on an impromptu wall of shame, our confessions ran the gamut from “crossing the street while looking at my phone,” to “leaving the house with the fireplace on,” to “thinking I’m okay to drive after a few drinks.” Yikes. Talk about a wake-up call.

When the dust settled, we realized we were guilty of the same safety red flags we are hoping to see come to an end. It was disconcerting, but in retrospect, we really should've expected it. The reality is that many Canadians share the same mindset when it comes to safety (or lack thereof). As a diverse team of people from various experiences and backgrounds, we're a microcosm of Canada in many ways. Of course we should've seen this coming.

Always optimists, though, we see all these stickies as a positive thing. Our wall of shame exercise gave us some valuable insights.

Awareness is the first step

As safety ambassadors, we can turn a blind eye to bad habits in our own lives. Nobody likes a hypocrite!

Safety starts with us

Our mission starts with us. By taking steps to live safer, we'll generate good ideas and action items to share with our community.

Take action. Learn. Repeat.

Taking action is great, but we also need to measure how well it's working! It's important that we'll be transparent in our findings, and show how we're adjusting our strategy with every success or failure. We're committed to reporting back on our mission progress to the Onlia community. As we together take steps toward making Canada safer, we'll share progress updates along the way - and seek feedback from the community on other ways that we can help make an impact.

Taking a hard look at how we can live safer was a big step in living our mission, both as a company and as individuals. And hey, there's still plenty room on the safety wall of shame! Have any of your own taboos to add to it?