Reduce workers' compensation claims to just a handful; save over $3 million
"Very few" workers have injury-related absences
Imagine your workers' compensation claims going from 543 a year to about a dozen companywide, with incurred medical costs plummeting from $3.5 million to $300,000 and claims costs going from $4.04 for each $100 of payroll to only $1.27.
These are some of the "knock your socks off" cost savings figures for workers' compensation achieved by Atlanta-based Simmons Bedding Company.
The money wasn't saved by doing safety and wellness programs as cheaply as possible, but rather, by "doing them right to make the business more financially stable," according to Jonathan Dawe, director of safety, health and workers' compensation. "To us, it's never about worrying about trimming down a program. We see safety and health and wellness as a profit center."
Track these metrics
The cost of accidents and injuries, absenteeism, workers' compensation premiums, and medical expenses are closely tracked. "All of those things are costs to the business that need to be controlled," says Dawe. "We have tons of data that show the reduction in workers' compensation claims and their cost."
Days away from work, restricted work activity, and time off from the job, "all mean dollars and cents," says Dawe. "And we have almost no lost time. Last month, 19 of our 22 locations had zero reportable accidents. Our recordable incidence rate is 1.9 against a bedding manufacturing industry average of 6.2. We have few workers, and I mean very few, that do have injuries that require them to be out of work."
Here are some interventions that led to this success:
Injury prevention is addressed for every job.
Each job is evaluated for a good workplace design to engineer the hazards out of the job to begin with, good administrative controls including training, safe work procedures, job rotation to reduce the potential for musculoskeletal strain, and use of personal protective equipment such as hearing protection for employees exposed to 85 or more decibels of noise.
"We have a philosophy that accidents don't just happen. They are caused by unsafe acts and unsafe conditions," says Dawe. "It may be a hazardous chemical that is not properly stored or an electrical cable posing a trip hazard."
A safety signoff procedure is done for all equipment, chemicals and products used.
"All safety deficiencies must be corrected prior to new machinery and equipment being implemented in our facilities," says Dawe. Engineers and operations managers must always ask "Has a safety sign-off been performed on this new machinery or new equipment and have all the hazards been abated?" before proceeding with a trial or pilot of the new devices or processes.
"An assembly line will not be put into operation until such time as myself and the safety committee and members of our engineering staff have certified it," says Dawe. "This is done during the design stage, before it's put in operation on the floor. We learn about the hazards before somebody else learns about them by accident." Simmons undergoes approximately 16 consultation visits from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) in any given year. "One suggestion from OSHA we wound up implementing was installing fencing material as an additional protective barrier guard to restrict stored and stacked materials from falling over or through the existing guard railing of a mezzanine area," says Dawe.
See job safety analysis (PDF)
See OSHA Machine Guarding Checklist (PDF)
An in-depth analysis is done for every workplace injury and accident.
"We have a very rigorous accident investigation process. Close calls requiring medical attention or reportable incidents are thoroughly investigated, root causes identified, and controls put into place to make sure it never happens again anywhere," says Dawe.
See incident report form (PDF)
See sample incident report (PDF)
Each employee is given a safety and health goal.
Managers and supervisors are given specific goals for safety and health in their performance management plans which are tied to their annual merit salary increase. A department supervisor's goal might be to get a 90% score on a monthly safety audit, up from an 80% score the previous year.
"Factory associates are also given a special bonus for achieving plant-wide goals in safety, such as achieving a 20% improvement in the annual OSHA recordable incidence rate for the facility from the prior year," says Dawe.
Imagine your workers' compensation claims going from 543 a year to about a dozen companywide, with incurred medical costs plummeting from $3.5 million to $300,000 and claims costs going from $4.04 for each $100 of payroll to only $1.27.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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