A Case for Investing in Safety

Injuries and Illnesses cost industry $170 billion annually.

$1 dollar invested in safety saves $3-6 dollars of cost.

Direct Cost

Equipment replacement

Medical bills

Workers compensation premiums

Settlements

Loss of productivity

Damaged product

Recovery time and expense

Indirect Cost

Company image

Vendors going elsewhere

Loss of quality

Delays in delivery

Collect safety cost data

Create a track record

Integrate safety into operations

Lagging Measures

Number of injuries

Injury rates

Near misses

Workers comp cost

Number of lost days

Number of restricted days

Number of first aid cases

Leading Measures

Number of audits

Deficiencies corrected

Number of behavioral audits

Percentage of safe behaviors

Safety improvement measures taken

Number of safety committee activities

Measuring failures do not tell the whole story. Use leading and lagging measures.

Injury Management

Determine root causes

Determine trends

Determine preventive measures

Use data to support request for improvement Involve employees

Reporting

All injuries reported immediately

Train employees on this requirement

Corrective action if fail to do so

The sooner you know the better.

Focus

Surface cause

Root cause

Avoid blame

Categories of Investigations

Near miss

Property damage

First Aid

OSHA recordable

Investigation Team

Safety Professional

Employees doing the job

Supervisor in that department

Safety committee member

Goal

Who?

What?

Where?

When?

Why?

Ask "Why" five times

Acts vs conditions

90% of injuries are due to unsafe behavior

Need to dig deeper

Mitigation

Engineering

Administration

PPE

Communication

Injured employees

Physician

Insurance Carrier claims representative Management

Make up a list of light duty task that could be performed.

Write up a process for your system

Process in Action

Accompany the injured employee to the medical provider.

Obtain physical restrictions documents

Maintain communications

Manage modified duty assignments

Culture Change

Leadership

Employee participation

Safe work environment

Continuous improvement

Cultural integration

Priority

Value

Safety is how we operate

Safety is owned by everyone

Employees are empowered

Visible symbols

Make it part of key organizational events