If you’re “it” when it comes to risk management for your business, there’s a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. How do you determine the best place to start, given limited time and money, to keep your workers safe and keep your company in compliance? Where should you focus? How do you make sure that you stay on top of everything?
There are several important steps you can take to have a world-class safety program, even without many people on your team:
- Determine the managerial perspective on risk management. This is the single most important thing to do because it will set the tone for your ability to drive the risk management initiatives of your company. Do everything you can to make this attitude proactive, rather than reactive.
- Analyze the current state of safety in the business. An initial SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) will prove invaluable for planning risk management.
- Review the mission statement and overall goals of the organization to help align the safety process. The results will determine the direction to go; whether it’s compliance, the creation of a safety management system, or some combination of the two. To take the program to another level, take a careful look at how you need to integrate safety into the process.
- Understand the OSHA standards that apply to your business – and make sure that everyone in the organization is familiar with the basics of these regulations.
- Evaluate your safety plan from a business perspective. Develop a budget that measures your financial return on investment.
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There will always be a risk that something will go awry during construction projects. When something does go wrong, the result is usually costly time delays and mild to devastating additional material, labor, and damage costs. As far as risk goes, most construction business owners view insurance as their first line of defense. Not that insurance isn’t an appropriate risk prevention tool, but it’s not always economically feasible or efficient to try and cover each and every possible risk with insurance. There are actually many risks that can be dealt with thorough the concepts of risk transfer, risk sharing, risk retention, risk control, risk prevention, and risk avoidance. Let’s look at some key points about each:
1. Transfer of Risk. There are parties, aside from your own insurance, to which you might transfer the risk. The two most common risk transfers are through being named as an insured person on an alternative insurance contract, and through express indemnification clauses. When you’re named on another party’s insurance, their coverage extends to you. If you’re a general contractor, for example, then you might require the electrical contractor to name you on their liability policy. As long as the other party’s insurance covers the loss, your portion of any loss would be paid by the other party’s insurance policy.
The second common method of transferring risk is through an express indemnification clause in a contract. This is also referred to as a hold harmless clause. There are three varying degrees of risk transfer. The type one indemnity clause, also called a broad form, states that the indemnitor (party that will be responsible for the loss) will hold the indemnitee (party that will be protected) harmless regardless of whether the loss was caused by the indemnitee. A type three clause, also called comparative fault, holds the indemnitor responsible for only the loss that they caused. The most common type of indemnification clause is the type two, also called the intermediate form. The indemnitor assumes all the risk unless the sole cause of the loss is fully attributable to the indemnitee. An example of a type two clause would be a general contractor agreeing to hold an owner harmless (regardless of whether the loss was partly caused by the owner) if the loss was caused in part or entirely by the contractor.
2. Risk Sharing. There are often opportunities to share the risk with the other parties involved with the construction project. The contract should have a clause that stipulates each of the involved parties would be liable for those losses caused by his/her actions or inaction.
3. Risk Retention. Whether they want to or not, all construction businesses are going to retain some of the more minor risks. It’s simply not monetarily feasible to cover every single risk with insurance. These minor retained risks, such as errors that cause a couple of days of redoing work, are funded from the operating budget. Insurance deductibles are another way that risk is retained. Just be sure that whatever risk is retained has a value and can be funded should a loss actually occur.
4. Risk Avoidance. Although risks are often tempting, such as a supplier offering a cheaper material, most risks are best avoided. If you suspect that the cheaper material could be defective, then it simply makes better sense for you to put the longevity and reputation of your business first and avoid the risk.
5. Risk Prevention. Risk prevention is a very broad topic with many elements, but the premise of the concept is taking action to avoid negative events from occurring in the first place. It’s usually very simple carelessness that causes accidents. So, risk prevention may include simple things like keeping passages free of debris and idle tools secure. Risk prevention should be an ongoing training program for employees, supervisors, and managers.
6. Risk Control. Like risk prevention, risk control is a very broad topic with many elements, but the premise of the concept is reducing the amount of loss incurred during a negative event. A good example would be posting emergency response phone numbers so that immediate help can be called during an accident. Risk control should also be an ongoing training program for employees, supervisors, and managers.
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When an emergency (anything from an explosion to workplace violence) strikes your business, taking the wrong action can result in confusion, damage, injury — or even death. That’s why it’s vital to have a comprehensive plan for dealing with different types of mishaps.
For example, in the event of a tornado, you’d want to have your workers sheltered in a safe place inside your facility. On the other hand, in a fire, you want them to be able to flee the building quickly and safely. The type of building might be a factor in your decision. Most modern factories and office buildings have steel frames, which means they might be more sound structurally than small business premises. However, a major earthquake or explosion will affect nearly every type of structure; some buildings will collapse, while others will be left with weakened roofs, walls, or floors.
Consider both emergency situations that would require evacuation and those that would indicate the need to stay put, and plan accordingly. For example, what would happen if a part of your facility caught fire? Suppose there were severe flooding in your immediate area? How would you respond to a chemical spill? What would you do if an ex-employee with a gun was threatening your workers?
Certain natural disasters, such as windstorms or large-scale chemical or biological releases outside your facility call for “sheltering-in-place” (selecting an interior room or rooms, normally with no or few windows, and taking refuge there). In many cases, local authorities will issue advice to shelter-in-place via TV or radio. Designate a safe haven, or havens, inside your building for employees until the danger has passed. Hold shelter-in-place drills, as well as evacuation drills.
If any employees need to stay behind in an emergency so that they can shut down certain equipment or perform other duties, your action plan should set out detailed procedures for them. Make sure that these workers are able to recognize when to abandon the operation or task and evacuate before their exit path is blocked.
To learn more about designing and implementing an emergency action plan for your business, please feel free to get in touch with us at any time. We’re here to help you protect your business from risk.
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Employees who don’t learn the safe way to work are accidents waiting to happen — and that means that workplace safety training should play an integral role in your company’s risk management program.
Repetition is essential to this process. Make sure that your trainers repeat essential work safety concepts, information, and terms several times. Look at it this way: At any moment during a training session, some trainees probably aren’t going to be paying full attention — and if they don’t hear something, they’re not going to do it when they get back on the job. What’s more, many people might need to hear, see, or experience things at least twice before they understand.
Repetition is also important when it comes to practical applications of safety information. Employees need the opportunity to practice what they’ve learned until it’s locked into their heads and their performance is flawless. So when a safety procedure involves a practical act, be sure that the trainers give a demonstration, repeat it a few times until everybody catches on, and provide feedback while trainees practice.
You’ll also need repetition to make sure that workers don’t forget what they’re supposed to have learned. Training industry leader Bob Pike says that people can remember 90% of what they’ve learned one hour after training, 50% after a day, 25% after two days, and only 10% 30 days later. According to Pike, full retention of subject matter requires no fewer than six repetitions! That means plenty of follow-up and refresher training — especially for more complex material. Other experts recommend spacing safety reinforcement training so that employees can practice new procedures and skills or use new information on the job supported by coaching before they go back to the classroom for review and additional training.
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As your business grows, the risks you face become more complex, potential losses grow, along with your insurance premiums. At some point, you’ll need to decide whether it makes sense to turn over the responsibility for risk management to a full-time professional.
Before making this decision, experts recommend that you weigh two key factors: 1) the cost of paying a full-time risk manager, and 2) the potential savings that this manager can generate.
The first element is relatively easy to determine, it’s the salary and overhead of the manager, plus whatever clerical support that he or she needs.
The second item requires you to analyze the extent which a full-time risk manager can:
- Centralize and compartmentalize responsibility for risk management in a single department. This improvement in efficiency should more than offset the increase in administrative costs.
- reduce losses by providing analysis of loss control needs, careful scrutiny of reports, and knowledge of whom to contact for specialized help. Careful attention to loss reserves and adjusting practices can help cut costs dramatically. For example, adjusting liability and workers compensation claims requires special expertise. Insurance companies generally provide adjusters, it’s always helpful to have someone on your team who can evaluate their conclusions.
- help lower your premiums by paying closer attention to coverage criteria, negotiating with agents, brokers, and insurance companies, and using familiarity with industry terminology.
If you’d like our input on making this key decision, feel free to get in touch with the risk management professionals at our agency at any time. We’re here to serve you.
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Demographic changes in today’s workplace are impacting the way risk managers handle lost Productivity, the cost of wage replacement, and skyrocketing workers comp premiums that are created by the health problems their employees face. Chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, arthritis, back problems, respiratory disease, and diabetes are far more prevalent among workers aged 55 and above. These workers account for an ever-greater share of the labor force, than among younger employees.
Employers who promote healthy life style choices offer an effective way to reduce health related costs. Experts recommend taking these steps:
- Encourage workers to educate themselves about their health problems.
- Offer health risk appraisals to employees.
- Introduce disease management programs to promote healthy behavior.
- Make healthy food options available.
- Encourage exercise.
- Discourage unhealthy habits. For example, make the workplace tobacco free.
- If you have a fairly large workforce, provide on-site medical facilities.
- Use employee assistance programs (EAPs) to help with family and home issues that often emerge when managing long term chronic conditions.
- Create mobility throughout the day. Being sedentary or standing for long periods can create problems for employee with health conditions.
- Conduct periodic ergonomic assessments.
- Encourage breaks in concentration and focus by dividing tasks into shorter cognitive units.
- Establish a safety committee that recognizes and rewards valuable safety suggestions.
- Build in accountability for the workplace health and safety committee at the supervisory level.
Of course, these guidelines apply equally to all of your employees.
To learn more, feel free to give a call.
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