True or False, Employers can write the most detailed Safety Handbook, hire the most experience supervisors and managers, and their safety program can still be a dismal failure? True. Contrary to popular belief Safety Handbooks do not impact how, when, where or why employees are injured.

Some employers assume that if they write a comprehensive safety handbook that follows the Occupational Safety and Health Standards to the letter and distribute it during New Employee Orientation – employees will read it, follow the expressed directions, remember to work safely and ultimately avoid injuries. All of these assumptions are false. Safety Handbooks provide false hope that everything is ok in the work environment.

Most safety handbooks end up on a bookshelf with no practical application in the workplace. On rare occasions, the book is dusted off to satisfy the workers’ compensation insurance carrier, or to show OSHA that you have a formal written program, or to find the exact wording to discipline an employee who violated a safety rule.

Employers, who think that writing a safety handbook will prevent injuries, also hope that their employees will follow directions and remain injury free. As the statistics show, employees are injured every day, every hour and every second. Instead of relying solely on a written safety handbook, employers should attempt to answer one simple question, what can I do to create a safe and injury free work environment?

Employer’s who successfully answer this question do not take a hands off approach to injury prevention. They understand the mandate to provide employees with a safe work environment; they also understand that injury prevention starts by creating a culture where safety is paramount and procedures are in place to effectively prevent, monitor and manage occupational injuries.

There are volumes of safety information readily available on the internet to help employers implement safety in the workplace, the only problem, most organizations do not access and use the information effectively. Proactive employers utilize the free resources and tools that are readily available on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s website – www.osha.gov to implement best practice in their work environment. They use the OSHA resources to research the safety requirements for their industry, implement employee centered training programs and ultimately reduce or eliminate injuries.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel – OSHA has already tested, documented and created a venue to disseminate it to employers. Use the resources as a guide; look for trends in your industry, alliances with your industry trade associations, inspections that OSHA conducted at similar businesses. What did they site? Do you have the same problems in your work environment? What can you do to eliminate the exposure or risk?

Your work does not stop there; now you have to create a method to disseminate the safety information to your managers, supervisors and line employees. The best approach, develop and implement job specific safety training programs with an emphasis on injury avoidance. Your training program should be formal, consistent, uniform and documented. The information gathered during your research can be incorporated into your job specific policies, procedure manuals and transferred into a formal hands-on training program. The resources can also be used to implement on-going safety awareness programs.

Remember, creating a safe work environment starts by insuring that employees understand the specifics of each job you are asking them to do. This means training the employee on the exact job tasks, method or methods for completing the job safely. Evaluate every department or work area in your organization, identify potential injury prone areas and implement procedures to avoid injuries. After implementing your training program develop a competency matrix to insure that the training is effective.

When incidents happen do not bury your head in the sand, investigate the root case of the accident and immediately develop procedures to keep it from happening again. Create a corrective disciplinary policy for employees who violate safety rules and for supervisors who tolerate non-compliance. A corrective disciplinary program includes retraining the employee, providing guidance and establishing a method to verify that the employee is complying with your safety policies.

Safety conscious employers, train their employees, mandate that they follow appropriate safety procedures, provide ongoing educational opportunities and enforce safety rules.

Yes, a written safety handbook is necessary but it should not be the focal point or the only method used to implementing safety in the workplace – it is just one component of the process.

Resources:

Occupational Safety and Health Administration – www.osha.gov
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health – www.niosh.gov
Centers for Disease Control – http://cdc.gov

Lost Work Days – is a billion dollar crisis hidden in the American workforce! The National Safety Council estimates that there are more than 80,000,000 lost work days due to occupational injuries or illness. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics indicated that, 1.2 million employees lost an average of seven days due to their injury or illness.

Recently, I met with a client who wanted to reduce the number of injuries at their job site. Instead of totally focusing on the number of injuries, I asked him to bring the company’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration – OSHA 300 log to the meeting so we could calculate their Return to Work Ratios—the number of lost days, the number of restricted days, the number of injuries, and the number of employees who never returned after an injury.

For calendar year 2006, this employer had 61 injuries that resulted in 1769 lost days, 255 restricted days. Yes, the frequency of injuries was huge, but it was staggering to look at the lost days—more than four years of productivity had been lost by employees who did not return to work after an accident.

We then randomly selected 5 of the employees who had been off work for more than 21 days. We reviewed the medical documentation associated with each worker to determine if these employees had a valid reason for being off work beyond the first seven days. The review showed that on average all 5 employees had been released by their treating physician to return to work—with limitations—by the second week after their injury. The review highlighted the fact that the employer had not entertained the idea of identifying a job that would accommodate these employees. These employees were allowed to remain off work until the physician released them to return to full-duty work.

I find that employers seldom attempt to quantify the impact of allowing an employee who could return to work to stay at home. If employers ask one simple question—What is the cost of leaving this employee at home?—they might not be so quick to say, “We have nothing available.”

What contributes to this off work crisis?

Well, there is a long list: insurance carriers, medical providers, insurance agents, ancillary insurance providers, injured employees, attorneys and employers.

Before we can address implementing a proactive return to work program we have to evaluate the system that created this crisis. The workers’ compensation system was intended to be self executing, easy to navigate and easy to administer – instead it is riddled with loopholes, litigation, layers of rules and regulations and it does not provide employers with adequate guidelines or resources to understand the importance of implementing return to work policies.

When companies purchase workers’ compensation insurance coverage they are given a large packet that tells them how to file a claim. Stacks of Notice of Injury Forms and great resources to call the claim in – generally there is limited or no information about implementing a return to work program. For most employers the first time they hear return to work is from the adjuster managing their claim files. Why does the return to work process start at the adjuster’s desk and not during the underwriting process?

If you evaluate workers’ compensation from a pure financial standpoint, there is no real incentive to educate employers so they effectively manage their injuries. If employers opt to keep the employee out of work, the insurance carrier pays the lost wages or indemnity benefits until the employee is released to full duty or the employee exhausts the state-mandated benefits or until they settle the claim. Indemnity payments impact the experience modification, which increases the workers’ compensation premiums, ultimately driving up the employers cost of doing business.

Everyone benefits in this system except the employer – unfortunately most employers still don’t grasp this concept.

Let’s evaluate a typical hire for most companies:

There is an open position so you place an advertisement in the newspaper or online. Multiple resumes come in, you narrow your search to ten people, however only three people show up for the actual job interview. Of the three, you decide to hire Jack. After completing the background and reference checks, Jack is told to show up at 8:00 A.M. Monday morning and report to the HR Department to complete his paperwork.

Monday morning, here is the exchange that takes place:

“Hi, Jack. Welcome to the company. Fill out your paperwork, sit in the break room and watch the safety video and I will take you to work with Charlie, our senior employee. You will watch how Charlie does the job for two or three days, then you’re on your own. We are here if you have any questions. At XYZ Company, we have an open door policy.”

With this scenario, you are hoping that Charlie, your superstar employee, will pass down all of the requirements for the job. In reality, Charlie is frustrated because he has to train all of the new employees without any recognition, pay increase or bonus of any kind, and he passes down his bad habits, his frustrations and what I like to call his accumulated employee baggage to Jack. Before Jack has a chance to get his feet wet, he is already forming a negative opinion of your company. Before long, you are totally surprised because Jack is injured and out on workers’ compensation.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 13 percent of all injuries occur within ninety days of hire, 23 percent occur within the first four hours on the job!  These statistics highlight the one ingredient that is often missing for most employers – effective workplace training programs. Employers fail to understand that passing the torch is not training.

Employers often hire based on an unrealistic idea that all they need is a warm body in a position because “anyone” can be trained to do the job. This is the first mistake on the road to a workers’ compensation claim. It is essential that each job fit the worker and that each worker fit his or her job. What does this mean?

Employees must understand the specifics of each task you are asking them to do. Along with the specifics, they should be provided with appropriate safety training and the safety rules that apply to their job and their work areas. Employers, who have successful injury prevention programs, create a training matrix that outline the minimum safety training required for all positions. They use the matrix to implement training programs that are uniform, consistent and job specific. New employees immediately understand the importance of working safely and they understand the safety exposures within their work areas. 

In addition, employers with effective injury prevention programs spend the time to write detailed job descriptions, after they evaluate the essential and marginal functions for each job within their organization. They also take this process one step further and present the job description to the employee during the interview process.

Remember you are evaluating the candidate to determine if they meet the requirements for the job. During the interview you should ask specific questions based on the job description to make sure the candidate understands the job requirements. This process also allows the candidate to evaluate your company just as you are evaluating the potential employee. In today’s labor market, candidates want to know what you are expecting from them so they can make an educated decision before they accept your job offer.   

After presenting the job duties and selecting the candidate, it is your job to use the probationary, or introductory, period to train and evaluate the employee. This period is called the “introductory” period for a reason. Introduce the new employee to your work environment, job concepts and evaluate their performance, then determine if they are the right fit for the position.

As the employer, either you did not provide enough training and oversight to the employee or you hired the wrong employee to do the job or you kept the wrong employee too long. Most workers’ compensation claims can be traced to one of these HR decisions.

Employers must recognize that bad hiring decisions and improper training programs can increase the likelihood that an employee will be injured. Spend the money to train your employees correctly—from the beginning. If you evaluate the overall cost of one workers’ compensation claim—including: the loss of manpower, the administrative cost to manage an injured employee, the workers’ compensation premium cost and the overtime to cover jobs that would have been done by the injured worker—you will see the cost benefits of integrating an effective safety training program into your workplace.

Understanding the specifics of each task you are asking your employees to do is essential to preventing injuries. Training your employees, mandating that they follow appropriate safety procedures and providing ongoing educational opportunities is the key components of an effective injury prevention program.