The Morguard Corporation was recently honoured as Canada’s safest employer through the Thomson Reuters Awards program.

For the second consecutive year, Morguard received the gold award for outstanding performance in workplace health and safety in the retail and services category.

The real estate company also won a silver award in the wellness category.

“As a responsible employer, we have made valuable investments in people, programs and procedures in targeted areas, including health and safety, wellness, emergency management and business continuity planning,” said Rai Sahi, chairman and chief executive officer of Morguard.

The company manages about three million work hours a year in Canada and has developed Occupational Health and Safety programs to benefit employees and more than 120 million people who visit the portfolio of shopping centres.

Safi points out that strong employee engagement is a key motivator of these programs.

“Starting from the Risk Management Group that develops the programs to every staff member responsible for implementing the programs at the property level, our team is empowered for success,” he adds. “There is a direct and measurable impact on the performance of the portfolio because of their efforts.”

Judging is based on an employee safety perception survey and a panel that reviews criteria, such as leadership and management support, employee engagement, communication, innovation and injury statistics.