Safety- A Matter of “Awareness”

Let me ask you a couple of questions about safety in your workplace:

---Do you have a safety manual, but you don’t know exactly where it is because there is so much dust on the manual you can’t see it?

---Does your Safety Committee consist of you and 3 other people that haven’t worked for you in 3 years?

The truth is, Safety manuals and Safety Committees are good to have, but they are not really effective tools in keeping your employees from having on-the-job injuries.

Twenty years ago (yes, that’s right- 20), I worked for a grocery chain, and we were having a lot of injuries to our employees. Our Worker’s Comp costs were going through the roof, and we couldn’t figure out how to stop them. We had about 300-400 employees, so we decided to put in a partially self-funded plan. Now each store and its manager was responsible for the claims frequency and severity of its own employees. Their store was charged for the claim. As a matter of fact, part of the Manager’s bonus was based on injuries during the year. GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR FREQUENCY OF EMPLOYEE INJURIES- We had a 75% reduction in frequency and a 50% reduction in severity!!!

I tell you that not to suggest you go to a partially self-funded plan, but to help you understand what really matters in safety on the job. One thing changed- there was accountability for actions, and the managers made sure every employee knew how important it was for them to be safe! Voila- a Safety Program that works!

So, in conclusion, if you really want to reduce on-the-job injuries, there are two things I can recommend that I KNOW will help:

  1) CARE about keeping your employees safe
  2) Let the employees know safety is important to you- make them aware

Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? In reality, its hard work, but I can assure you it is easier than making your employees read the safety manual!!!

Does anyone have any experiences about safety they would like to share?