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The CFI Podcast: David Murray on working safely during COVID-19

Right now, the world is dealing with an unprecedented situation – the COVID-19 pandemic. Forestry has been declared an essential service across Canada, which means workers need to follow appropriate health and safety guidelines and employers need to stay up-to-date as the situation rapidly evolves. But there is a lot of information out there to sort through and it can be difficult to know what best practices to follow.

That’s why for the fourth episode of The CFI Podcast, we spoke with David Murray, the corporate safety, HR and environment manager for Gorman Group and co-chairperson of the Manufacturing Advisory Group, about how to work safely during COVID-19.

During our conversation, David touched upon how the combustible dust issue in B.C. helped the industry prepare for future health and safety crises.

“A silver lining to those tragedies is that a very solid organized relationship was bridged between various companies and between companies and the HSA and regulators,” he explained. “So, our industry is now better equipped to predict and respond to forestry-related safety crises, and when a global crisis like this pandemic occurs, we’re in a much better position than ever before to tackle it.”

Consequently, despite the uncertainty we’re facing today, David is confident the forest industry will emerge from this pandemic stronger than ever.

“We’ve demonstrated our resilience through a lot of market and other constraints, and this pandemic will be another thing that we’ll get through,” he said.

Listen to the SoundCloud link below to learn more about the industry’s response to the crisis, best health and safety practices to follow, the importance of contingency planning and effective communication, and more. You can also find the episode on iTunes under Annex Business Media: Podcasts or stream it at annexbusinessmedia.com/podcasts.

For more information on best practices to follow during COVID-19, please click here.

Have an idea for a podcast episode? Email Ellen Cools at ecools@annexbusinessmedia.com

Music: www.purple-planet.com