As you know, HSEp is a 12-month program, which means you have 12 months to:
Select your topics
Implement your topics
Evaluate your topic implementation
Complete your evidence submission
Submit your evidence to Dunk to review and finalize
Receive successful validation of topics by the WSIB
If this seems like a lot to do in 12 months, you’re right! Especially when you account for the 60-day “Living and Breathing” period after your training has been completed. But don’t worry! Create realistic, achievable timelines to measure your progress. If you’re in the HSEp for members with more than 100 employees, this has already been done in your work plan. However, for the Small Business HSEp, no work plan is required, so timelines must be set on your own to measure progress and stay on track.
From the WSIB’s lens, there is only one timeline you need to meet, the Action Plan Expiry date (the date your topics expire). This date is 12 months from when your topics have been approved on the WSIB portal. Don’t forget that it takes time to prepare the work plan and go through the approval process for employers with more than 100 employees, so your registration timeline will be different from your topic timeline. This WSIB sends email reminders both 60 and 30 days before the Action Plan expiry date and Dunk follows up with you around 30 days. However, this may be too late.
As per the terms and conditions of joining HSEp with Dunk, you must have your topic evidence submissions to us by the 10-month mark to allow enough time to finalize your submission. It takes time to review and provide feedback on your submissions, as well as the time it takes our members to make updates. Remember, we have many members with similar timelines and expiry dates, meaning we may be reviewing and assisting multiple members at the same time. Please be patient and allow us time to complete the review process.
To successfully complete the program within your registration period, the timelines you have set to measure your progress in the HSEp must be followed. We know unexpected issues pop up from time to time. To accommodate for the unexpected, here are some tips to help you set timelines:
Steps 1 and 2 can be completed at the same time and with the resources we provide you. The policies are prewritten and need to be customized for your workplace. Next, a communication must be sent to all employees. It won’t take long to do this unless your policy approval process takes time. It’s still ok to communicate the topic and policy if you know it’s only a formality and no changes would be made.
Plan and account for the time it will take to train employees. Consider the number of employees you have and their engagement/participation levels.
Schedule the 60-day “Living and Breathing” period to take place during your business’s “busy time”. This allows you to get your work done while taking a break from HSEp and seeing how your topic implementation worked before evaluating it.
Generally speaking, the evaluation step can be time-consuming. Plan at least 8 hours to conduct a proper evaluation. Remember to evaluate all aspects of your workplace and get feedback from employees.
Step 5 can be done immediately after Step 4 and, depending on how you want to communicate your successes and improvements (identified during your evaluation), it may only take a few minutes to prepare a communication and email it out to all employees.
Once Steps 1 through 5 are complete, compile your evidence submission and attach your supporting evidence. Remember to be clear, concise, and convincing. From start to finish, you’re looking at about 6 to 7 months to complete your topics. This allows about 3 months of wiggle room to adjust your timelines for unexpected issues that may arise.
Every year, we come across members who have expiring Action Plans that send us their evidence submissions a day or two before the Action Plan expires. At that point, there isn’t much that can be done. The only options that are available to members is to extend the Action Plan expiry date (with proper reasoning) for a fee or defer your topics and forfeit the current year so they can be taken again. With this option, you would have to start at the beginning and redo everything.
Our goal is to ensure our members receive their rebates and we do everything we can to support you through your journey to help you be successful. However, it is the member’s responsibility to meet the required deadlines in the program. The onus is on you to do the work and get it to Dunk in the required time frames. If you’re noticing your program implementation is going sideways, call us and we will work together to get you back on track.
As always, we are here to answer questions and help you set timelines to measure your progress in the program. There are great rewards for successfully completing HSEp and Dunk has never had a member fail their topics if they do the work and adhere to the timelines they set.