Ask a Manager: my employee doesn’t think we’re doing enough about bears at work

[minoanmiss]

Okay, I’m going to sound like a strange Canadian lumberjack stereotype here, but I had a question come up in my workplace about bear safety and when it’s reasonable to refuse work in bear country for occupational health and safety reasons. The safety hazard is “potential bear encounters” but I feel like the logic of other workplace health and safety and team dynamics should also apply.

I work in a natural conservation area. My team of seasonal staff does some of their work outdoors in a campground, working with the public. All of the staff live on site in the park or nearby. Black bears are common in this area. My team gives bear safety talks to visitors as a part of their duties, so they are very aware of the kinds of things they should do to prevent bear encounters, and know the steps they should take if they actually do encounter a bear. Bear attacks are extremely rare – usually once the bear and human notice each other, one or the other retreats with no issues. Sometimes we have to posture a bit, or get into a building or a work vehicle. Bear encounters are a frequent part of life here during our operational season. I probably see them twice a week, but almost never in super close proximity or in a dangerous way. They frequently wander through residential areas, including near staff housing and visitor cabins. If you’re aware of them and know what to do, they aren’t considered any more of a danger than, say, being aware of vehicle traffic and making sure to stay safe around motor vehicles.

This past summer, as a part of general safety supplies, like our two-way radios and sunscreen, I purchased two canisters of bear spray for my team, and said that if members of my team wanted to carry it when out in the park on work business, they were available as an optional tool. Bear spray, for the uninitiated, is pepper spray for bears. If a bear is charging you or won’t give you space, you make sure the wind isn’t blowing into your face and then spray it at them. It’s a non-lethal deterrent and it’s only deployed as a last resort. I’ve only had to use bear spray once, while hiking on my time off, in nearly 10 years. Other teams at my site who work in different jobs in the backcountry carry it as a part of their kit because they’re more isolated, and I thought it would be a good optional thing for my staff to carry – also to set a good example for visitors setting out to go for hikes in the woods.

One staff member, when they heard that I had made bear spray available to our team, said that we needed “intensive” bear safety training and that what I had provided was not sufficient to keep them safe from bears while they were on duty. This person had apparently received a half-day workshop at a previous job with a different organization and another site and was expecting the same here. It apparently involved actually deploying some sort of deactivated spray. The thing is, the only other formal bear safety training my site offers for employees are for those who haze problem bears out of town and actively trap and relocate them. Getting that close and personal with the bears is far and above what’s required of my staff and that training is not something that the other team can take the time to lead for my team. Essentially, it’s not a requirement of their role. When I spoke with the visitor safety officer at my workplace, they said that reading the instructions on the canister and watching the instructional video on the manufacturer’s website should be sufficient for the kind of work my team does, especially as my staff are trained to deliver bear safety messaging to visitors. That’s what other teams who work in the backcountry who carry bear spray do. We do not have a specific documented work practice from the occupational health and safety committee for bear encounters, but we do have one for if staff are actively working with wildlife (again, like relocating bears) which is not what my staff do.

When I came back to my staff member with this information, they were still very dissatisfied, and announced in front of the whole team that none of them should enter the campground unless they had intensive safety training in bear spray. I did say that it was not a requirement to carry or use bear spray, so if they were not comfortable with it they didn’t have to carry it and can follow the other safety protocols as normal (be aware of your surroundings and escape routes, practice prevention, carry a radio for communication). They countered that carrying bear spray was necessary when working outside on site for “safety reasons.” It almost got to the point of a refusal to work – but in the end, I hadn’t even assigned this staff member the shifts that would take them into the campground so the complaint fizzled.

I was a bit baffled by what my staff member was asking me. If this person is saying that it’s actively unsafe for staff members to enter the campground without bear spray and “intensive” training … then following that logic, would it not be considered unsafe for any people, including janitorial staff and members of the public, to enter the campground there without the same tools and training? Should we evacuate the campground? Should I just … not provide bear spray as an option for my staff to carry? But nobody else on the team had any objections to carrying bear spray or working outdoors. Spending time outside on-site is a requirement of the job and that will always carry with it the potential for animal encounters (bear, deer, elk, wolves).

I know this is an extreme example, but I’m struggling with what to do should this person come back next season and have the same complaint. Bear encounters are a normal part of living and working in this region – and this person is a long-time resident and to my knowledge does not own bear spray or carry it in their off hours. Bears are just as likely to walk through their front yard as they are to be in our outdoor workplace. What happens when I as the employer provide safety tools and training that the occupational health and safety committee and our park’s visitor safety officer consider sufficient and my staff member still says it’s not enough?

I can’t speak to bear safety at all, but I can talk about how to approach this from a management perspective in general — with the caveat that there might be something specific to bears that I don’t know but you’d need to factor in.

From a strictly management standpoint, I’d argue that you need to do two things:

First, reality-check your approach with someone who is a bear expert. Do they agree with the training and support you’re providing to keep employees safe? If so, great. (That might be exactly what you did when you checked with your visitor safety officer, assuming that person does indeed have expertise in bear safety.) For the sake of answering the rest of your letter, I’m going to assume that you’ve done this step and gotten confirmation that you’re using the best practices to keep people safe.

The second step is a very up-front, transparent conversation with your concerned employee if they end up wanting to return next season. Before hiring them back, you should raise this! You can say, “I know you had concerns last year about bear spray training. I sought advice from (insert specifics here) and they’ve confirmed we’re using best practices for the type of work we do and the bear exposure we have in our work. They didn’t recommend bear spray training, and it’s not something we’re currently able to offer. Knowing that, will you be comfortable with the expectations of the job? If not, I certainly understand. I want to make sure we sort this out up-front so you’re not in a situation you’re not comfortable in.”

But also … are there any creative ways to offer this person the training they want? While the team doing that additional training doesn’t have the time to offer it to your team too, could this employee (or other interested team members) sit on in a training the other team is already doing for themselves? Or if there aren’t other local resources for training, are there online trainings you could make available if your team members want it? I get that you’re saying it’s unnecessary for their jobs, but if you can make people feel safer at work with just a bit more effort (or money), it’s worth doing.

On the other hand, it also sounds possible that this person was revealing a fundamental lack of alignment with the work you do. My lack of bear knowledge makes it hard for me to assess that with any confidence, but I do wonder if that was part of what happened last summer. Maybe it wasn’t! And certainly it’s reasonable for people to want to feel safe performing their jobs. And while I get your point that there are others at the campground without this training (janitors, members of the public) and that a bear is just as likely to walk through someone’s front yard as through your campground, I do think it’s different when you’re in a professional role where you are responsible for other people’s safety. So from that perspective, your team member might not have been entirely off-base.

Ultimately, though, all you can really do is to (a) confirm that your practices are safe and the ones recommended, (b) see if there are realistic ways to offer any extra training anyway, and then (c) be up-front with employees and potential employees about what you can and can’t offer, so they have a clear-eyed view of what they’d be signing on for and can decide if it works for them or not.