HSC Training Courses

Your building is aging and those large capital projects are on the horizon. How well are you prepared? Do you know how to balance condition and need against available funding? Are you comfortable with administering the bidding process or evaluating and awarding contracts? What happens at substantial performance or contract completion?

This full day workshop will help you to build your capacity to:

• Understand how to prioritize work
• Assess risk
• Identify scopes of work
• Work with professional consultants
• Handle a formal bid process
• Evaluate, award, and administer contracts
• Avoid scope creep
• Understand bid security and contract security
• Manage substantial performance
• Deal with deficiencies
• Make use of warranties

Who should attend: Housing provider staff (ideal for property managers and maintenance staff) and board members.

This course provides you the tools to support the development of a workable preventive maintenance plan for your building.

This course provides you the tools to support the development of a workable preventive maintenance plan for your building.

What you’ll get:

• An interactive CD with templates to help you get started with your own personalized plan
• A resource book with tools to help you develop or enhance your preventive maintenance plan
• An opportunity to share and develop best practices
• Practical knowledge through a virtual site tour with the new Preventive Maintenance building tour video

Who should attend: Housing provider staff (ideal for property managers and maintenance staff) and board members.

Changes to occupational health and safety legislation for buildings with asbestos and asbestos-containing materials can affect you more than you might think. If you have asbestos materials in your buildings and are doing renovations, have an emergency situation such as a broken pipe or a fire, or even if you need to make minor repairs, you and your staff need to be aware of the proper procedures you must follow to prevent serious health implications and comply with the regulations.

In this half-day course, you will learn the legal requirements for managing buildings containing asbestos materials. You will receive valuable information about typical locations for asbestos, writing a tender for an asbestos removal contractor and how to identify the qualified ones. You will also learn about the procedures you and your staff must follow when handling, removing or working in the vicinity of asbestos.

The implications and risks of improper handling or removal are too serious to ignore. If you have or may have asbestos materials in your building, you need to attend this workshop.

Who Should Attend: This workshop is critical for property managers and maintenance staff who may have to deal with the removal of asbestos from their buildings.

While the likelihood of a disaster occurring is uncertain, every housing provider should develop and write concise and comprehensive Business Continuity Plan that addresses all critical operations of the organization and its essential services. This Business Continuity Planning Workshop will assist housing provider staff and board members with the process of business continuity planning and management.

This workshop gives you a step-by-step guide for all facets of the continuity planning process with emphasis placed on preparing for a Pandemic Influenza outbreak. You’ll receive a detailed manual of specific templates to be used in establishing formal policies and procedures for continuing operations in the face of a devastating crisis.

This program avoids using explicit scenarios or examples in order to remain simple and generic, to account for the diversity of housing providers and to meet your actual needs.

When disaster strikes, you must act quickly. But quick, effective action requires a plan. This course provides core guidance on the actions necessary in emergencies that could cause hazard to life or property, so you’re not guessing what to do in a high-stress, life or death situation.

Focusing on the principles of Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Initial Recovery, this workshop shows you how to plan an effective emergency response before a disaster strikes and significant downtime is incurred. Inadequate preparation for emergency situations can have serious effects on the viability of your operations, financial position, quality of service and convenience, and can pose a serious threat to the lives and safety of residents, employees and the general public.

You’ll get a detailed step-by-step guide on how to complete an Emergency Response Plan as well as how to organize an effective Emergency Response Team. Those attending the seminar will receive a detailed manual of specific templates highlighting Emergency Response procedures for 21 specific Emergency Events. These templates are supplemented with information packages for board members, employees and residents on what to do when an emergency strikes.

Who Should Attend: Board Members, Housing Provider Management Staff, Resident Relations Coordinators, Operations and Maintenance Staff.

Involving residents is key to the success of any conservation plan: the more people get “on-board”, the better the results.

In this workshop, we explore the behavioural side of conservation and identify strategies to positively engage residents and staff in water and energy conservation and waste management activities.

The Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC) and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) have significant legal implications for housing providers and service managers.

This workshop will help minimize your risk exposure by exploring recent case rulings to highlight what your organization must do to be compliant with these pieces of legislation.

What you’ll get:

• Case summaries and rulings, specific to housing, made by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal and the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board with key points of interest
• An understanding of the OHRC and AODA and what it means to the sector
• Tools to identify and remove existing barriers
• A resource book with sample policies and forms
• The opportunity to discuss real-life scenarios with others from the sector

Our discussion on human rights concerns and accessibility will also address the AODA customer service standards coming into effect and what these requirements mean for you.

Who Should Attend: Housing provider staff, board members and service manager staff

HSC’s new risk management course helps you take control by providing you with the hands-on knowledge and tools to implement your own risk-control program.

• Learn how to identify hazards that cause property and liability losses
• Benefit from hands-on learning from pros on how to conduct a thorough risk-control inspection
• Fast track the development of your own customized risk control program with a risk-control inspection checklist and other tools
• Access support, best practice resources and discussion forums on risk management issues with a six-month membership to an Online Risk Management Community

This workshop brings the topic alive by blending classroom and applied learning methods. In the morning you will learn about issues and risks affecting housing providers and how to mitigate hazardous conditions. In the afternoon, professional loss-control engineers will take you on a guided site inspection of a local housing provider to show you how to conduct a loss-control inspection so you can perform your own inspections at your sites.

Learn from the pros and find out how to conduct your own risk control inspections to prevent damage to your property and potential injury to your staff and residents.

Who should attend: This course is offered exclusively to housing providers, who purchase their insurance through HSC Group Insurance program, and to service manager staff.

Managing Risk is not just about getting the right insurance plan. Risk management means protecting everything your organization values: your mission, your buildings, your residents, your staff, your revenues and reserves, your relationship with funders, your reputation and your future.

This full-day workshop will empower you with fresh ways to see trouble coming. You’ll learn to sift the real risks from the “what if” nightmares, know when to take calculated chances, and how to strengthen your organization’s position against the sector’s most troubling challenges.

Managing Risk, so it doesn’t manage you provides an excellent overview of the major risks housing providers face on a regular basis. Since this workshop is the foundation for the other workshops we offer, it is highly recommended as the starting point for learning about risk management.

Who Should Attend: Senior Administration Staff, Senior Managers, Department Heads, Property Managers, and Board Members.

Is mould the new asbestos? Do you have a plan in place to combat mould and prevent the adverse effects it can have on your business, and residents’ health?

You will learn:

• What mould is and why it is a problem
• Guidelines and steps for effective mould removal and clean up
• How to develop a Mould Prevention Program

Who should attend: Property Managers and Maintenance Staff.

On June 30, 2008, Ontario Human Rights Code (OHRC) Amendments came into effect and have dramatically impacted the responsibilities of housing providers with respect to the “Duty to Accommodate”. Also on June 30, 2008, a new adjudication process was introduced which has significantly affected how Ontario Human Rights complaints are presented and defended.

HSC’s full-day Ontario Human Rights Code Amendments – To Be Forewarned is to be Forearmed! workshop provides an in-depth overview of the specific changes in the OHRC legislation: the new adjudication process; required forms that must be completed; required timeframes for filing and responding to applications, and detailed instruction on the defence of “undue financial hardship”. This workshop will be a combination of detailed instruction and “hands-on” case analysis.

Who Should Attend: This workshop is essential for all housing provider staff and board members.

You asked for it so we’re offering it! Many Service Managers identified the subject of operational reviews as a primary area for professional development; so we’re going to help you help each other. The operational review process has evolved over the years as a result of growing knowledge and experience and to meet local and specific needs. In this full-day course, we will support forward thinking approaches to the operational review process which utilize your experiences – what has worked, what hasn’t and what can be improved upon?

We will begin by taking you back to the basics of operational reviews; we will look at the goals behind conducting an operational review, examine the benefits, and identify what information can only be found through this process. Through an examination of what has been done and what’s being done now, we will identify the qualities of an operational review model that maximize benefits for both service managers as well as housing providers so that you can find the model that works best for you.

Who Should Attend: This workshop is for Service Managers only.

Housing providers deal with a vast array of personal information on a daily basis and interact with many external agencies pertaining to the residents being served. The management of personal information and protection of an individual’s privacy has never been more important. If you work in social housing you cannot afford to miss HSC’s workshop, Privacy: Handling personal information in accordance with the law.

What you’ll get:

• An in-depth overview of the applicable privacy legislation within which housing providers must operate
• Learn how resident information needs to be handled on a day-to-day basis
• Step-by-step instruction on how to operate within the applicable privacy legislation
• Learn how to complete a privacy audit of your business
• Best-practice policies and procedures related to privacy in the workplace
• Useful templates: forms of consent; installation of security cameras; installation of signage for video surveillance; release of information to police

This workshop is supplemented with case analysis and review of precedent-setting privacy law.

Who Should Attend: Housing provider front-line staff, resident relations coordinators, maintenance staff, board members and service manager staff

Do you know the legal roles and responsibilities of housing provider boards? As a housing provider or board member do you understand the legal liability of boards under Ontario and Canadian law? HSC’s Understanding Legal Responsibilities of Non-Profit Boards workshop will deliver essential learning for anyone sitting on a board or working with a provider board in social housing today.

What you’ll get:

• Understanding of legal responsibilities and legislative requirements applicable to board members
• In-depth knowledge of liability concerns for board members as it pertains to tort law, common law, contract law, civil law
• Understanding of the responsibilities of board members individually and collectively under the Canada Corporations Act and the Ontario Corporations Act
• Better decision making and more effective boards, which directly impacts operations and quality of service to residents
• Excellent orientation for new board members on the legal responsibilities of their position
• Service manager and housing provider staff will better understand the roles and responsibilities of the boards they support, work with and report to
• A detailed reference manual with applicable legislative interpretations, by-law templates, fact sheets and other valuable resources.

All workshop materials has been legally vetted by the law firm of Iler-Campbell, LLP and is compliant with the appropriate governing legislation at the time of publication

Who should attend: Board members of municipal non-profits, private non-profits and local housing corporations, housing provider staff of municipal non-profits, private non-profits and local housing corporations, Service manager staff

Note: this workshop is not designed for housing co-ops.