Accelerate Workers Compensation Cost Reduction By Integrating Safety Into Quality Control Meetings

While using a standard “Safety Suggestion Form” may be used effectively to get feedback from employees and identify unsafe hazards, a potential drawback to this approach is that it requires the employee, through his or her own initiative, to complete it. It also requires a separate response process by the safety and health team. There is another way to get safety suggestions and, at the same time, put safety awareness on overdrive throughout your organization. Have you considered taking your Safety Suggestion Program into the inner workings of your quality control or productivity meetings? The diagram below shows how this process can work:

During the course of your quality control or productivity meeting the participating employees will discuss on-going production or service issues of all kinds, including safety hazards. The team leader will ask for and encourage comments of all kinds. It does not matter what the suggestion is. It could be minor or major. The key is to encourage employee safety suggestions that will improve their productivity. The only requirement is that the team work together to clearly identify the problem and work together to develop a recommended solution for management’s consideration. This process should also be “risk free.” Once completed the quality control team will submit its recommendations to management for review and action. Management will then review the recommendation, makes its decision on a course of action, and assigns the task to someone to complete in a timely manner. That individual will then develop a budget and implement the action. It is critical that management notify the quality control team within five business days of its decision and also will notify them once the recommendation has been fully implemented. Otherwise the employees will quickly realize that this is just a “management fad” and “they are only interested in production.” By responding promptly management is clearly expressing genuine interest and concern for their safety and backing it up with action.

The benefits of this approach to your organization are:

• It incorporates all the key components of an effective safety suggestion program;
• It literally uses the dialog and synergy created in quality control and productivity meetings as the engine for safety success;
• It encourages suggestions that apply to worker safety and quality control/productivity. As such it is a far more inclusive;
• If utilized properly this approach will literally tap into valuable recommendations that many employees have and, as a result, make the organization more cost effective;
• It will help your organization in its OSHA compliance efforts and facilitate safety training;
• Because the process links safety with productivity and quality control it will dramatically reduce your indirect workers compensation costs.

CompEraser provides a number of on-line, on-demand resources to help you quickly implement this process. If you would like a sample of three-part form that is used in this process please contact us at info@comperaser.com. For more information on CompEraser’s services please go to www.comperaser.com.