According to the Institute for Work & Health, new workers are four times more likely to be injured during their first month on the job than at any other time. With summer getting into full swing, students and young workers are heading out into the job field and now is the time to ensure they are properly instructed, trained, supervised and following the proper procedures.

To ensure that our young workers are properly protected, the Ontario Ministry of Labour has created an Online Portal for Young Worker Safety. The portal includes links to resources, tools, calculators, videos and contact information that provide our young workers with the knowledge they need to stay safe of the job. Also included are helpful tip sheets that are individually tailored for young workers, parents, supervisors, employers and the general public.

The ministry has launched Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages as well to better connect with young workers which are now reaching thousands of users.

The need for quality management is apparent in an industrial context, but how about...a municipal organization? Well, just as quality management has expanded its reach from manufacturing to customer service, quality can have a huge role in any organization, including municipal corporations.

So check out the latest issue of Municipal World for an article I wrote on Quality Management in Municipalities. You'll need a subscription to Municipal World to read it (unless you are already among their thousands of subscribers...after all, these guys have been around for more than 115 years!) 

In the meantime, check out our recent webinar on Quality Management in Municipalities where Intelex partnered with The Town of Ajax, one of the very first municipalities in North America to achieve ISO 9001 certification. In this free 30-minute discussion, David Forget, Ajax's Manager of Quality Service, joined Intelex to examine exactly how municipalities and other service-based organizations can benefit from ISO 9001 registration and streamlined quality management in general.

What a year! Following a cascade of achievements in awards competitions, Intelex has just received a huge accolade. We've been named one of Canada's 50 Best Small and Medium Employers! The competition, which pitted Intelex against hundreds of other small and medium employers across the country, was facilitated jointly by Queen's School of Business and AON Hewitt. The results were recently featured in PROFIT magazine.

Everyone at Intelex is thrilled by this achievement, which is another feather in an increasingly packed cap! In the past few months alone, Intelex was included on:

• Deloitte's list of the fastest growing technology companies in North America for the third consecutive year.
• The Toronto Star's list of the Top GTA employers.
• The Globe and Mail's list of the best employers in the GTA.
• Gartner's list of 2011's 'cool' vendors, and more.

These wins are a gratifying acknowledgment of our relentless focus on creating a progressive work environment that prioritizes the needs of our greatest asset – our people. Sound like an attractive work environment? You bet. And we're hiring. Check out our careers page for postings and apply today. 

The accolades just keep piling on. Only a week after being singled-out as one of Toronto's top employers in the Globe and Mail, Intelex was ranked 15th out of 35 of the Greater Toronto Area's best employers in yet another employment award competition, the results of which were published in the Toronto Star last week.

Organized by Queen’s School of Business and Aon Hewitt, the Best Employers in the GTA competition evaluated workplace culture, benefits, retention, and most importantly, employee engagement. According to contest coordinators, the results of this study were influenced heavily by a survey conducted to determine how employees actually feel about their employer.

“The real litmus test of whether or not an organization is a Best Employer lies with the employees themselves,” explained Neil Crawford, Aon Hewitt’s study leader. “This study goes beyond satisfaction (how much I like things here) and commitment (how much I want to be here) to measure engagement (how much I want to and actually contribute to improving our business results). Without a focus on engagement, it’s difficult for organizations to achieve sustainable success.”

This win follows two other notable accomplishments for Intelex, including being featured in The Globe and Mail's list of the Greater Toronto Area's Top Employers 2012 as well as Deloitte's list of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America.

If you are looking for a great job with a great company in Toronto, check out our careers page.

Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC), a massive utility provider covering the entire nation of Oman, had its environment, health and safety (EHS, or HSE in the Middle East) management system featured in the Times of Oman today. OETC’s HSE management system is provided by Intelex with the help of Middle East partner Barik Group.

OETC has implemented Intelex’s complete EHS management solutions, and leverages the system to manage auditing, nonconformances, incident and near-miss reporting, safety meetings, KPI reporting, and much more. Across the region, utility companies must meet stringent regulatory EHS and reporting requirements.

As OETC GM Said Al Hadabi remarks in the Omani Times article:

(The) online reporting system has played a vital role not only keeping OETC in compliance with regulations and standards, but also in maintaining a safe workplace across all the sites. OETC will now have a 360-degree view of not only their employees’ activities, but also all the contractors working for OETC. This online HSE reporting system allowed us to use fewer resources while expanding our operations. The system has also reduced a lot of manual errors and paperwork and improved communications and accountability of HSE activities – a key benefit to the organization.

The implementation of our system at OETC – following system rollouts at Oman Oil, Muscat Electricity Distribution Company, Daleel Petroleum and Dubai International Airports – represents the fact Intelex is becoming the go-to provider for HSE management for energy, utility and other industries across Oman and throughout the region. 

Only weeks after being included on Deloitte's list of the 500 fastest technology growing companies in North America, Intelex has another accolade to shout about. Today we were included in The Globe and Mail's list of the Greater Toronto Area's Top Employers 2012!

That's another great feather to add to our cap. The write-up in the Globe indicated we are 118 employees strong, but since that data was collected earlier this year, we have actually grown to over 150 employees! And as we continue our trend of impressive year-over-year growth, we're poised to leave that number in the dust in 2012.

On that note, we're hiring! If you live in or near the Toronto area, don't miss the opportunity to land a great job at a great company.

Intelex is thrilled to congratulate client Nalco Company on being included in a prestigious list of America's 12 safest companies for 2011!

Since 2002, EHS Today has presented an annual list featuring 12 companies that have developed innovative safety solutions, boasted low injury and illness rates, and engendered a corporate culture of safety.

In addition to Nalco, which uses Intelex's Safety Management System, the list of winners included Caterpillar Inc., ACCO Brands Corp, Honeywell and more. Drop by EHS Today for a complete list, and take a look at the article on Nalco.

The awards were handed out Monday in a ceremony that program sponsor MCR Safety calls “the Academy Awards of safety.”

EHS Today editor Sandy Smith noted that all of the winning companies had ingrained safety as a core value of their company.

Congratulations, Nalco! Keep up the great work!

Once again, Intelex has been included in Deloitte's list of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America.

This is the third consecutive year Intelex has been included in this who's who of established and up-and-coming technology companies across the continent. It is also a great way to cap off a record-breaking fiscal year where we achieved more than 50 per cent growth over 2010. That continues our nine-year spell of more than 40 per cent year-over-year growth.

Learn more by checking out the news release over in our press room.

Intelex is pleased to announce it is currently featured in IT World Canada alongside Virgin Atlantic, which uses Intelex's web-based solutions for safety management.

The article follows Intelex's 2011 User Conference at Toronto's Fairmont Royal last week where Jonathan Jasper of Virgin Atlantic delivered Intelex's keynote address. IT World Canada author Dave Webb, who attended Jonathan's talk, noted at the event that it is rare for the client to deliver the keynote address at a vendor's user conference.

The article highlights how Virgin uses Intelex tools to manage safety incidents, including slips and falls, turbulence, disruptive passengers, even passenger headaches, all of which have to be documented thoroughly by an airline. As the article notes:

The airline runs only a few standard Intelex modules, prefering to develop its own customized iForms. “It becomes addictive. It becomes a bit of a hobby,” Jasper said. The airline has developed about 30 such modules. Now, “anyone with a shared spreadsheet” wants an iForm, Jasper said.

Virgin Atlantic uses 22 configurable security groups so those using the platform only see the data required for their job role. One-click buttons validate employee and flight information on reports. And all the forms are developed by business users.

Read the full article here.