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August 2011

Aug 01
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EXCAVATION SAFETY SHOULD BEGIN BEFORE BREAKING GROUND

By Workplace Safety

Whether being done to accommodate an installation or build a foundation, excavations are common occurrences around a construction site. Just because excavations are so commonplace that they seem like just another task being accomplished by competent employees doesn’t mean that serious dangers aren’t present. Among excavation sites, cave-ins are the primary cause of death and injury. Soil can weigh upwards of 3,000 pounds per cubic yard, and can cause buried workers to suffer broken bones, concussions, internal injuries, or even suffocate within minutes. Of course, a cave-in isn’t the only danger associated with excavation work. Other hazards include: toxic fumes, buried power lines, a lack of oxygen, and explosive gases.

The best way an employer can avoid exposing their employees to the risks of excavation work is by developing a safety plan tailored to the specific site before starting any work. Start by considering the following seven areas as the site to be excavated is assessed.

  1. Soil Composition. OSHA defines the different types of soil composition and gives the unconfined compressive strength for each type. Unconfined compressive strength, which simply means how much compression the soil can take before it fails, is determined by either field or laboratory testing. The four types of soil include:
    • Stable rock – natural solid mineral matter that remains intact as it’s exposed to excavation. An example would be sandstone.
    • Type A soil – cohesive soils with an unconfined compressive strength of at least 1.5 tons per square foot. An example would be clay.
    • Type B soil – cohesive soils with an unconfined compressive strength of 1.5 to 0.5 tons per square foot. An example would be angular gravel.
    • Type C soil – cohesive soils with an unconfined compressive strength of 0.5 or fewer tons per square foot. An example would be sand.
  2. Surface Debris. All potentially hazardous objects should be identified and removed.
  3. Traffic. The amount of vehicle traffic on and near an excavation site should be assessed. The vibrations caused by vehicles moving across a nearby frequently traveled roadway could create a cave-in.
  4. Underground Utility Lines. All telephone, electric, sewer, fuel, and water lines should be located. Determine what utility agencies need to be contacted for a shutoff until the work is finished.
  5. Water Accumulation. It should be determined if there’s a potential for a high water table, rains, or nearby bodies of water to cause water to accumulate on the excavation site. A solution to eliminate or alleviate the risk should be identified.
  6. Stability Of Neighboring Structures. It’s important to know if any structures neighboring the excavation site, such as buildings and walls, could become unstable during the excavation. Such structures will need to be adequately supported prior to the excavation.
  7. Atmosphere Hazards And Low Oxygen levels. Determine if there’s a potential for exposure to either of these. If so, it should be determined how they will be controlled and what rescue equipment will need to be available to workers.

Hazard identification is a responsibility shared by all on-site employees. However, OSHA requires excavation sites be examined by a competent person. This examiner must be trained in areas like protection methods, excavation requirements, and soil analysis since they will be directly responsible for classifying soil, atmospheric testing, and determining how best to protect employees from cave-ins. The examiner must also inspect the protective system and excavation site for damage, instability, and hazards at least once per day.

Aug 01
Love0

TEN STEPS TO IMPROVE THE TRAFFIC SAFETY OF YOUR EMPLOYEES

By Workplace Safety

Some of the statistics on vehicle crashes are startling. For example, a vehicle crash occurs every five seconds, someone is injured in a vehicle crash every 10 seconds, and someone dies in a car crash every 12 minutes. Since most of these crashes occur on workdays or while a person is commuting to or from work, employers are often impacted by these crashes and also bear a cost as the employee involved in the accident misses work.

In fact, the above vehicle crash statistics are directly from the Guidelines for Employers to Reduce Motor Vehicle Crashes booklet that was produced by the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety, OSHA, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The booklet provides employers with a simple driver safety program that can be implemented in the workplace. The program is only 10 steps and is applicable to businesses of all sizes, with or without a fleet of company vehicles, and regardless of whether personal or company vehicles are driven by employees throughout the work day.

The 10 steps of the driver safety program:

  1. Involve all levels of staff in the initial planning phase of the driver safety program. You need employees to be involved and a commitment from your senior management. Remember, employees that see management disregarding or not abiding by the new program aren’t very likely to value or abide by it either.
  2. Compose a written policy and procedure with explicit and enforceable rules regarding driver safety. These rules should be centrally posted and periodically distributed to all your employees. Department managers can further discuss these rules during department and in-service meetings.
  3. You should also have all employees, regardless of whether they are driving their own or a company vehicle, sign a safety contract. By signing the document, the employee is acknowledging that they’ve read and understood your policy and is agreeing to follow it.
  4. Keep driving records on all employees. You can set up a time to periodically review the records for any drivers with driving violations. Make sure that your policy clearly specifies how many violations will result in an employee having their company-related driving privileges revoked.
  5. Part of the safety program should be creating a process to report and investigate all crashes, even those that are minor. Your policy should make it mandatory for employees to report any vehicle accident they’re involved in. The process should also establish a method of investigation to determine how and why the crash happened and if it was preventable.
  6. The selection, maintenance, and inspection of your company fleet should also have a specific set of guidelines. The guidelines might include considering the safety features offered by various models when selecting new fleet vehicles, routine maintenance being performed in accordance with the mileage interval recommended by the manufacturer, and a mechanic performing and documenting an annual inspection of all fleet vehicles.
  7. You will need to consider what disciplinary actions will be taken in response to preventable accidents and traffic violations. Make sure that your policy clearly establishes the consequences for each type of infraction and for subsequent infractions within a set period of time.
  8. Establish an incentive program to recognize and reward employees that have avoided accidents and traffic violations.
  9. Reinforce what you’ve already established by continuing to provide your employees with refresher courses on driver safety.
  10. Take steps to ensure that all employees are obeying traffic laws and highway safety regulations. Employees that have been driving for an extended period of time often take shortcuts. Enforce consequences so that employees know this isn’t acceptable behavior.

Aside from the above 10-step program, the booklet further provides employers with examples of real life successful safety programs; a worksheet to calculate a businesses’ losses from crashes; information on a multitude of traffic safety issues that could possibly need addressing, such as aggressive, distracted, drowsy, and impaired driving; and a resource listing.

Aug 01
Love0

CANCER LEADS AMONG CAUSES OF LONG-TERM DISABILITY CLAIMS

By Employment Resources

Unum is a Fortune 500 company and one of the leading providers of Disability, Long-Term Care, Life, Voluntary, and Disability benefits. In 2010, the company looked at data concerning their long-term disability claims. Unum found that cancer has been the top cause of long-term disability claims within their company during the past 10 years.

There have long been questions regarding the workplace and cancer, but elements like early detection and more advanced treatment options have greatly changed the direction of such questions. It wasn’t that long ago that a worker diagnosed with cancer didn’t have high odds of ever returning to work. Today, just the fact that cancer treatments have become more effective has resulted in improved return-to-work rates for those diagnosed with the more commonly seen types of cancer.

Unum found that cancer was the causative factor in around 14% of their long-term disability claims during the past 10 years. The data showed that back injuries, at 12% of the claims, and other injuries, at 9% of the claims, were among the other most frequently seen causes of long-term disability claims in 2010. However, a comparison of Unum’s 2001 and 2010 long-term disability claims found that a larger percentage of the cancer claimants returned to work in 2010 than they did in 2001. Some of the cancer-specific return-to-work percentages included:

  • Breast cancer – 52% in 2010, 47% in 2001
  • Prostate cancer – 30% in 2010, 28% in 2001
  • Colon cancer – 30% in 2010, 23% in 2001

Most workers are actually highly motivated to return to work following a cancer diagnosis. At a time when the person is emotionally, physically, and mentally overwhelmed, returning to work can help provide a sense of control and normalcy. Of note, the data also showed that the return-to-work rates for breast cancer sufferers on short-term disability doubled during the past 10 years, increasing from 28.8% in 2001 to 60% in 2010. The Unum data showed that other leading causes of short-term disability claims in 2010 included the following:

  • Pregnancy (22%)
  • Injuries (9%)
  • Digestive disorders (7%)
Aug 01
Love0

DON’T OVERLOOK THE VALUE IN PROMOTING WELLNESS IN THE WORKPLACE

By Employment Resources

In recent years, employers across the United States have been paying more and more attention to promoting the wellness of their employees. One way that many employers are focusing on the wellness of their employees is by offering a workplace wellness program. The mutual benefits that a workplace wellness program offers to employees and employers alike is just one of the many reasons that these programs are becoming so popular. As any employer knows all too well, healthy workers take fewer sick days. Healthier employees are also more happy, better able to focus on their job duties, and more productive on the job. As the cost of health care continues to rise, employers are desperately searching for ways to get a handle on the cost of employee health benefits. Of course, a healthy employee doesn’t make as many doctor visits and is certainly less apt to need costly medical procedures, treatments, medications, and/or surgeries.

Employers are also constantly seeking innovative ways to attract and retain valuable employees. The benefits that wellness programs offer can help boost employee morale and keep retention rates high. Plus, giving employees more opportunity to socialize in settings outside the office, such as through a weight management program or an exercise class, often makes them more likely to work well together during their working hours. Offering a wellness program can also help an employer compete for new hires by offering an attractive perk. In fact, some potential employees have actually come to expect wellness programs to be part of their prospective employer’s benefit offerings.

The American Journal of Health Promotion recently conducted a study on wellness programs. It showed that the companies involved in the study saw their company’s wellness programs decrease utilization of health care benefits by 26%, sick leave by 28% or more, and workers’ compensation claim numbers by 30% over the last year. This is just one of the many studies showing that companies offering wellness programs and proactively encouraging their employees to make healthier lifestyle choices are seeing results when it comes to areas like reducing the risk of work-related injuries and controlling employee benefits cost.

Employers have an array of options when it comes to setting up an employer-sponsored wellness program. Some companies are choosing to hire coaches and consulting groups to come in and design and/or run their wellness program. Other companies are opting to create and manage the wellness program on their own. The program’s features are also versatile and can include any of the following features:

  • On-site fitness facilities
  • Massage therapy
  • On-site exercise classes
  • Smoking cessation support and incentives
  • Confidential consultations with health coaches
  • Stress reduction classes
  • Nutrition classes
  • Workplace safety education
  • Weight management
  • Stretching sessions
  • Health risk evaluations
  • Walk/run tracks and bike trails near or on-site
  • On-the-clock exercise time
  • On-site injury rehab and training

Some employers have even extended the offerings of their wellness program to the families of their employees. After all, one of the best ways to ensure workers are staying fit and healthy is by getting their entire family involved in the fitness and good nutrition lifestyle.

Overall, employees generally have an extremely favorable response to the valuable benefits they receive from a wellness program. The countless family, social, and work responsibilities that most people need to keep up with on a daily basis can be challenging and overwhelming. Between it all, it’s easy to put what should be the most important commitment, one’s health, on the back burner. And, this is exactly why workplace wellness programs are equally beneficial and desirable.

Aug 01
Love0

EVALUATE AND PLAN TODAY FOR GOOD ENROLLMENT RESULTS IN THE FUTURE

By Employment Resources

Companies devote a great deal of energy and countless working hours to meet the demands of end-of-year enrollment periods. Since the offering of quality benefits is a crucial aspect in keeping existing employees and attracting new employees, having a less than enthusiastic response to an open enrollment can be very distressing for employers. One thing that you, the employer, can do to improve enrollment results is thoroughly evaluate your current benefits and employee pool. Your offerings need to be a good fit for both your business and employees. Some employers will immediately find obvious indicators that their benefits package needs a major overhaul. Meanwhile, some will need to look for more subtle hints. Here are three common signals that it may be time to make some benefit changes:

  1. Workforce Demographic Changes. Any shift in the demographics of your employee pool can simultaneously shift insurance needs. Employers often find that this shift occurs every so often from nothing more than time elapsing. For example, the single college graduate that was hired five to ten years ago may now have a family and be interested in supplemental life insurance, day care accounts, flex time schedules, and such. A substantial change to your employment numbers, such as from adding a new department or gaining a competitor, can also signal that a change might be needed. You could qualify for better pricing on your benefits from simply having a larger employee pool.
  2. Direct and Indirect Employee Complaints. If employees are grumbling to you, your management team, or their co-workers that they aren’t satisfied with their benefit choices, or they indirectly let you know their dissatisfaction through poor enrollment results, then you need to determine the cause of the dissatisfaction and put your investment in employee benefits to better use.
  3. Rise in Costs. Take time to reassess your benefit package when the cost is constantly on the rise and anytime you question if you’re getting the most value for your benefit dollars. Good enrollment results require good planning. This planning should take place long before the open enrollment period arrives to best avoid a poor enrollment outcome. Some key measures to consider during the plan phase include the following:
    • Surveying employees and conducting focus groups are two excellent ways to determine what benefits your employees find most attractive. Of course, you aren’t going to be able to satisfy every need of every employee. However, the communication process can be used to construct a benefits package that’s more on target with the overall needs of your employees. It also shows employees that you care about their needs.
    • Meet with your benefits adviser to make sure that your benefits, such as medical and dental, are competitively priced. If not or you just want to see if you can get a better price, then you might begin the request for proposal process.
    • You should compare your offerings to what your main competitors are offering. It will be difficult for you to hang on to existing employees, much less attract new employees, if your competitor is offering a large selection of well-priced benefits and you aren’t.
    • It might be prudent to consider adding new benefits to your plan. Don’t let the dollar signs scare you away from new benefit offerings. There are supplemental benefits that can be offered on a 100% employee-paid basis. The addition of pre-tax flexible spending accounts for dependent day care or health care is another option. Even when employers aren’t contributing to the cost, studies have shown that employees typically appreciate these types of additional benefits just being available to them.
    • Establish a routine midyear review to see how each of your open enrollments go and to determine ways that future enrollment processes can run more smoothly. For example, you might review the effectiveness of the communication process, if there were better ways to help employees make good enrollment decisions, and the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of in-house and outside resources and technologies.

The evaluating and planning process may be tedious, but the benefits of a smoother running enrollment process and better enrollment turnout are certainly worth it for both you and your employees.

Aug 01
Love0

SHIFTWORK FATIGUE: SEVEN STEPS TO A SAFER WORKPLACE

By Risk Management Bulletin

Fatigue plays a major role in shiftwork accidents. To improve the safety, health, and productivity of your shiftworkers, NIOSH recommends these guidelines:

  • Keep the schedule regular and predictable. Shiftworkers should know their schedules well ahead of time so that they can plan their sleep and rest periods. Past studies of train accidents show a correlation between irregular schedules and accidents.
  • Keep consecutive night shifts to a minimum. Some researchers suggest that employees should work only two to four nights in a row before taking a few days off. This keeps circadian rhythms (the body’s “clock”) from being overly disturbed and limits sleep loss.
  • Avoid quick shift changes. Avoid a break of only seven to ten hours before rotating to a new shift, such as from morning to night on the same day of the week. Such a rapid change, makes it difficult for a worker to get much quality rest before having to go back to work. When they return to work after a quick shift change, most workers feel tired and sleepy, which can lead to accidents. At the end of a night shift, it makes sense to have a break of at least 24 hours before rotating the worker to another shift. Some researchers even suggest a 48-hour minimum.
  • Avoid several days of work followed by four to seven-day breaks. Working for several days in a row followed by several days off can be highly fatiguing. Many shiftworkers find it difficult to return to the night shift after several days spent on a daytime schedule during their time off.
  • Keep long shifts to a minimum. If workers are doing 12-hour shifts, two or three shifts in a row should be the maximum. Avoid longer night shifts. When it’s not possible to avoid them, move heavy work to shorter or day shifts and lighter work to the longer night shift.
  • Examine rest breaks. Standard lunch and rest breaks taken during the shift might not be enough for night shift workers to remain safe and productive. In jobs that require repetitive physical work or great concentration, it’s better to have brief hourly rest breaks for recovery from physical and mental fatigue.
  • Be aware of high-risk periods. Managers and supervisors of night workers should be aware of the high-risk periods when workers might not realize that they’re tired. Most accidents occur between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., near the end of the shift, when activity levels are high in the work area, or on the first two night shifts after working days or having days off.
Aug 01
Love0

MOBILE WORKERS + MOBILE PHONES: ARE YOU PREPARED?

By Risk Management Bulletin

If you supply your workers with company cell phones, laptops, BlackBerries, iPads, or other portable devices, and a worker is injured using the device when doing company business off site or off the clock, you could face a costly Workers Compensation claim.

The increasing use of mobile devices in the workplace is challenging traditional notions of work-related mishaps, creating a significant risk-management exposure for businesses.

Picture a woman in her car on the way to work. She has a laptop open on the passenger seat, a GPS on her windshield, another portable device open on the dashboard, a smart phone in her hand, and earphones in her ears, when she runs off the road and suffers a broken leg. Or picture a man walking down the street after he leaves the office. He’s so engrossed in checking work e-mail and texting on his BlackBerry that he’s oblivious to a crosswalk, stumbles when he hits the curb, falls, and is hit by a car. Both of these people might easily argue that their injuries were work-related.

Before the explosive growth of telecommuting and mobile devices, most employees worked in a defined physical location during a specified time. In 2009, 17.2 million Americans worked from home – a number that’s projected to double by the end of 2012. With mobile devices, people can (and increasingly do) work from: their houses, cars, clients’ locations, subways, libraries, bars, airports, parks – even at the beach; a survey by contact manager program Xobni showed that 59% of Americans check their work e-mail while on vacation.

Many of these workers believe that management expects, or encourages, this type of behavior. Even if this isn’t the case, your business could have some responsibility for incidents resulting from it – just as you might in harassment situations.

The solution: Ask yourself how much risk your business is willing to accept by delivering these mobile devices to employees in the hope of growing productivity. Then work with your human relations department to set “best practices” rules that define the scope and use of this technology away from the workplace – to create a culture that balances your employees’ professional responsibilities with their personal lives. This can present a serious challenge, especially with younger, tech-savvy employees who tend to blur the personal and the professional by using social media on the job, while checking on their work when they’re away from the office.

To learn more about how to protect yourself from this exposure please feel free to get in touch with our risk management professionals.

Aug 01
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MANAGING SAFETY FOR AN AGING WORKFORCE

By Risk Management Bulletin

Nearly one of four people aged 64 to 75 remain in the workforce — and the number will to skyrocket as the Baby Boomers reach retirement age, but want to stay active. The good news: Older workers have a lower injury rate. The bad news: Their injuries tend to be more serious and require more time away from work.

Senior workers have specific safety issues. Their retention is often shorter, they’re more easily distracted (for example, by noise in their environment) have slower reaction times, declining vision and hearing, and a poorer sense of balance.

What’s more, they sometimes deny their deteriorating abilities, which can lead them to try working past their new limits

  • These physical limitations lead to specific types of injuries for older workers.
  • Falls caused by poor balance, slowed reaction time, visual problems, or distractions.
  • Sprains and strains from loss of strength, endurance, and flexibility.
  • Cardiopulmonary overexertion in heat or cold, at heights, using respirators, or in confined spaces.
  • Health or disease-related illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, coronary artery disease, or hypertension.
  • Cumulative injuries after years of doing the same task, (such as truck drivers who experience loss of hearing in the left ear from road noise with their cab window open).

Look for these indicators that your older workers might need accommodations:

  • Physical signs, such as fatigue or tripping
  • Psychological or emotional signs, such as loss of patience or irritability
  • Feedback from supervisors or co-workers on declining performance
  • Numbers and patterns of sick days
  • History of minor injuries or near misses

You can help protect senior workers by:

  • Finding ways to help them work smarter, not harder
  • Decrease activities that require exertion, such as in working heat or cold or climbing ladders
  • Adjusting work areas, such as installing better lighting, reducing noise, removing obstacles, and decreasing the need to bend or stoop
  • Redefining standards of productivity
  • Learning your workers’ limitations, perhaps by conducting annual hearing or vision tests

Make sure that safety culture becomes an institutional value. For example, when co-worker feedback indicates that an older worker is having trouble, don’t fire the person. This will discourage honest input from employees who feel responsible for their co-worker’s loss of employment.

Our risk management professionals would be happy to advise you on developing a safety management program for your senior workers.

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