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Correctly Handling Workplace Safety & Injuries: Key to the Bottom-Line and Company Culture

By Merrick Dresnin Chief People Services Officer, Cote Hospitality | October 2024

When telling my wife that I was writing an article on Workers’ Compensation, you can imagine her reaction – boring! After discussing the business importance of this topic, she changed her mind.

A company can talk about how wonderful they treat their employees and their focus on engagement. If that same company ignores those healing from injury, fails to provide sufficient information to them or neglects empathy for their plight, that company can watch its engagement survey scores plummet. It is not just about ensuring an engaging workplace – managing workplace injuries is economics. Costs go up if injury management is not handled well.

When striving for a great, engaged workforce, one must remember that those out of work for whatever reason need attention, follow-through and information. They need support, exposure to resources and displays of care. Miss on those efforts and the company will miss on its engagement culture and financial goals.

Workplace Injuries and Workers’ Compensation

When people go into Human Resources, they usually have interest in employee relations, talent acquisition, perhaps training. Not many envision Workers’ Compensation as a career aim. Yet such specialists are critical to the success of our employers.

Workers’ Compensation is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical care for employees injured in the course of their employment. In exchange for such coverage, the injured employee relinquishes their right to sue under common law. Though well-meaning when first created, no one ever seems satisfied by the workers’ compensation system (primarily administered at state levels) as it can be bogged down in bureaucracy, inefficiency and limitations.

The employer’s workers’ compensation cost premiums are typically based on the MOD Rate (Modification Rate). Your carrier will look at the last three (3) years of costs and calculate that MOD Rate. The higher the rate, the higher the premium. Companies with little or no focus on claims management, incident reduction, etc., will end up with high MOD Rates and painfully high insurance costs.

Dealing with Workers’ Compensation requires patience, process-orientation and a general knowledge base not typical of many HR professionals. Often its dryness and complexity equate to professionals ignoring the incidences, frequencies and claim severities. This is a dangerous mistake, as it leads to frustrated workers and sky-rocketing costs.

So how do we control costs and make sure Workers’ Compensation is a benign area of our business expense? How do we make sure our employees know we care about them and want them healthy and back at work? Let us begin with the strategy of prevention.

Prevention

1. Assess the Safety of Your Facility

As an obvious starting point, make sure your workplace is safe. Your Insurance Broker (if the company has set up a brokerage relationship) may be able to come on-site and evaluate potential risks or hazard violations. They can make recommendations for changes.

You can take those recommendations to leadership and use them as justifications for prevention safety initiatives/repairs. I have also seen such evaluations work as evidence supporting dedication to safe workplaces; such evidence is very useful in injury lawsuits or Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) investigations.

2. Establish a Culture of Safety

Prevention need not amount only to construction changes; Human Resources can create a culture of safety and injury prevention within the organization. By educating one’s staff to be aware of their surroundings and inevitable safety challenges, we can prevent incidences. Building safety reminders/precautions into company communications (daily pre-shifts, monthly newsletters, bulletin boards with eye-catching warnings) is a good step towards strong, consistent messaging to all employees.

Such proactive steps towards prevention show your employees that you are paying attention to the realities of the workplace. The company then benefits both in terms of reduced injuries and an emphasis on safety that the employees will see – they will understand you care about them and their well-being. Many will “buy into” that culture and own their areas and the safety within them.

3. Establish Safety Committees - Ensuring Involvement

A key component to prevention is establishing everyone’s involvement. While this starts with encouraged awareness through signage and communication, it is greatly strengthened by formal Safety Committees. Such committees should include employees from all levels within the organization. Management should be involved, as they are able to make direct decisions as to safety in the workplace. However, line staff should also be included, as those on the “frontlines” doing the tasks that could lead to dangerous situations are best able to comment on changes/initiatives that create safer environments.

In the Safety Committee Meetings, participants should discuss any frequent injuries and what caused them. It is a good practice to remove names from the discussions, but incident description is important if positive change is the desired result. Talk about dangers to employees and how to reduce them. It is a good idea to include line staff in these meetings and if hourly, pay them. Again, this drives a culture of safety, a culture of caring.

Prevention is key to keeping the frequency of incidences minimal. It is critical to cost control and general employee satisfaction. When an employer takes the time to focus on prevention, it shows they care about their people – invaluable to any company striving for workplace comfort and engagement.

Incidences Will Happen

Despite all of our efforts at prevention, the Workers’ Compensation System exists for a reason - no one can prevent every accident or issue. Once we have injuries, the caring of those injured becomes the most essential cost-control of all. This is where the Human Resource professional’s empathetic approach to the business is crucial.

There are several steps Human Resources can take to ensure that someone injured heals quickly, thus minimizing treatment costs and days away from work.

Step 1: Ensure Communication

It is so simple, yet so hard. Picking up the phone and calling someone who suffered an injury pays huge dividends – it shows compassion and interest. Prior experience has shown me that risk issues/conflicts that have escalated invariably involved employees who lacked information or employer contact. Employees may have felt forgotten or ignored; many of them disappeared until reappearing in the form of extraordinary care costs, litigation or general dissatisfaction. Dialing those numbers and “touching base” gets people back to work and avoids litigation – two monumental business goals.

When someone is in pain or hurt, they do not need unanswered questions. After all the necessary paperwork is completed and submitted to the Workers compensation carrier Human Resources ideally provides proactive communication to the employee regarding nearby clinics, doctors - anything relevant to beginning treatment and recovery. Again, that simple follow up can avoid huge future struggles and often “speeds recovery”. People need answers.

Whether as a separate communication or part of the one noted above, the person contacting the injured employee needs to genuinely express care and concern. How is the employee coping with the injury? Is there anything that the company can provide? What information do they still need? Is there anything that can be done to make them comfortable? What more might they need? Be sure to let them know that someone from the insurance carrier will be reaching out to them and if that generates more concerns, to let you know.

If your culture is a healthy one, caring communication will feel right and be deeply appreciated.

Step 2: Get People Comfortably Back to Work

We have talked about empathy and reaching out to injured employees. Companies need, however, to do more than communicate and provide verbal support; they need to partner with their injured employees and get them back into the workplace – a win for everyone.

The hope is that the injured person can return to work without any restrictions. Depending upon injury and recovery, that may not be possible. The Company may need to offer “light duty” based on the person’s needs. Light Duty is a modified job assignment that is less physically or mentally demanding than the employee’s normal duties.

Light Duty may create inconvenience for the person’s supervisor. It seems every operator wants to deny someone’s return, some work is better than no work. Some work motivates people to heal and return. So, if someone has restrictions, attempt to determine what work they can come back to. There are legal compliance issues that are better addressed in a different article; however, if the goal is healing and returning people to the workplace find a way to meet their requirements and re-assimilate them.

Just as caring communication helps shorten time away from work, so do paths to light duty. Care for your people and get them back on the job!

Step 3: Check on the Injured Person After They Return

Once the employee is back, it’s critical to check on his or her well-being. After you have successfully re-absorbed employees into the workplace, the job is not done. Human Resources should coordinate and cooperate with operations to ensure the employee is accommodated should they have long-lasting restrictions. Human Resources is in the best position to ask about the return to work and “how it is going” – are they healthy, performing and being taken care of? While the person’s supervisor may not be able to ask questions about specific conditions (as that might be crossing into legal and/or privacy concerns), they can certainly ask if the person needs anything or if they are doing well. Again, it is all about genuine care and communication. There is nothing wrong with making sure someone is ok.

Conclusion

Workers’ Compensation is not everyone’s favorite subject, but saving money and creating a culture of engagement is. With effective prevention efforts and strategies to care for those who are injured in the workplace, a Company controls its premium rates and creates a culture of care. Genuine demonstrations of care through excellent communication and follow-up ensures people are safe and away from work for shorter periods. These approaches save money and take care of our people. As HR professionals, what other goals do we have?

Mr. Dresnin

Merrick Dresnin is currently the Chief People Services Officer for Cote Hospitality, a growing organization overseeing resorts and related activities in both Minnesota and Arizona. He also continues to consult providing both strategic and tactical human capital management guidance to clients. He has held HR leadership positions overseeing openings and restructurings at various properties/operations including the Trump International Hotel, Washington, DC, United Service Companies headquartered in Chicago, IL, the Hyatt Regency Chicago and Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, in California. Mr. Dresnin earned his BA from UC Santa Barbara - double majoring in history and anthropology. He earned his JD from American University (Washington College of Law). He has taught/advised at Kendall College, DePaul University and Georgetown. Mr. Dresnin has spoken at multiple seminars and served on panels reviewing various HR-related topics. Extended Biography & Contact Information

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You hereby authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card to pay for your membership to HotelExecutive. You further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card for any and all purchases of products, services in association with HotelExecutive. You agree to be personally liable for all charges incurred by you in association with your access or other use of any content provided by HotelExecutive or any third party in association with HotelExecutive. You acknowledge and agree that your liability for all such charges shall continue after termination of your access or any type of membership arrangement with HotelExecutive.

In the event that you have chosen to have your membership automatically rebilled, unless and until you notify HotelExecutive that you wish to cancel or terminate your membership to HotelExecutive, you hereby agree and authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to automatically renew your membership to HotelExecutive on a continuing basis and to charge your credit card (or other payment means you have selected) to pay for the ongoing cost of your membership. You hereby further authorize HotelExecutive's Internet Payment Service Provider to charge your credit card (or other approved payment means you have selected) for any and all purchases of products, services and entertainment provided to in, at, through or in association with HotelExecutive.

13. PRIVACY POLICY

The following is the Privacy Policy for HotelExecutive

We can be reached via telephone, email, or online at our contact page. When you visit our site we do not log any information regarding your domain or email address. Information Sharing: We do not share user information with any third parties other than via press release distribution as described below.

Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

Robert O'Halloran
Ryan McAndrew
Miguel Diaz
Frank Pitsikalis
Jeff Pedowitz
Mary Cook
Jeff Josephson
Robert O'Halloran
Michael Cheng
Jeffery Smith
Sneha Thuppul
Alfred Kaufmann
Markus Boberg
Robert O'Halloran
Coming up in March 1970...