Requirements Prior To Auditing:

• Audit Registration 
• Approval of Sampling Plan 

Deadlines:

• November 30: Submission of COR Maintenance Action Plan deliverables 
• December 1: Submission of COR Certification and COR Maintenance audits 
• All audits: 
• Data gathering: maximum 45 days 
• Report writing: maximum 21 days 
• Revisions: maximum 15 days per round of changes 

Need an extension? Email audits@amhsa.net prior to the deadline with the details of your request. 

AMHSA strives to provide initial quality assurance feedback in a timely manner – within two weeks for COR Certification audits and within four weeks for both COR Maintenance and auditor qualification audits.  

COR Maintenance Audit Element Substitution – Psychological Health And Safety

Employers who scored 90% or more on their last COR Certification audit and have held a COR for at least four consecutive years are eligible to substitute AMHSA’s approved PHS (psychological health and safety) audit for one element of their COR Maintenance audit. The PHS tool is available for use in three levels to accommodate the progression of your PHS program, and it can be substituted in place of any element except 1 (Management Leadership and Organizational Commitment) ,2 (Hazard Assessment), or 3 (Hazard Control). The score (%) of the PHS element will take the place of the element substituted. To apply or to obtain further details, email audits@amhsa.net. 

There is also the option for the PHS element to be conducted as a stand-alone audit – it can be used separately from a COR audit at any time. 

Training related to psychological health and safety to supplement our Health and Safety Management Systems and Health and Safety Auditing is being developed and will be available soon! 

QA Corner: Element 5 – Qualifications, Orientation, And Training

• 5.02: This question is only looking at the contents of the orientation process documentation, auditors are not addressing whether the orientations have been conducted. Justification notes need to address whether the 9 required components (listed in the question guidelines) are included, and provide some detail from the documentation reviewed (e.g. name of document, version, example of contents for one of the required components).  

• 5.05: This intent of this question is for the auditor to confirm that job-specific training includes hazards and controls, and a practical demonstration (but only if required). Not all job-specific training requires practical demonstration, as mentioned in the question guidelines. Examples of job-specific training for which a practical demonstration needs to be included are first aid (e.g. practice CPR with instructor present), emergency response drills (e.g. actually going to shelter in place location or muster point or carrying out emergency warden duties), and equipment training (e.g. fire extinguisher and chain saw). For example, if job-specific training was documented for 10/10 tasks, and 6/10 required practical demonstration, and 6/6 included that demonstration, positive indicators would be 100%. 

CBSA Working Group Update

The AMHSA COR Team continues to participate in the Complexity-Based Scalable Audit (CBSA) Working Group, in cooperation with the other Certifying Partners and the Government of Alberta – Partnerships. The Working Group is currently developing system requirements, questions, and guidelines for health and safety management system elements to be included in the scalable audit. The CBSA Journey Map has once again been revised, related to the following major potential milestones: 

• Instrument Prototype: November 2024 
• Prototype Pilot: August – December 2025 
• Engagement Sessions: March – April 2026 
• Planning, standards, training: 2027 
• Go-live: 2028 

Previous information shared about the CBSA Working Group can be found in the 2023 and 2024 AMHSA Newsletters and Auditor Updates (including background information about the modernization of COR plan which lead to the creation of the CBSA Working Group).  

2025 Announcements

• Training Changes: We are developing psychological health and safety supplementary training for both the Health and Safety Management Systems (HSMS) and Health and Safety Auditing courses. The Auditing course will be extended to three days (including the PHS training and expanded/new exercises), while the HSMS course will become 2.5 days. 

• Auditor Certification: Effective January 1, 2025 AMHSA Auditors who let their auditor certification expire will be required to successfully complete AMHSA’s Health and Safety Auditing Course as well as a qualification audit to recertify as an AMHSA Auditor. Auditors certified with another Alberta Certifying Partner who wish to become an AMHSA certified auditor will be expected to meet the same requirements.