OSHA Consultant – Part 2- Keeping Your Cool in a Hot Zone

Our OSHA Consultant Glen, CSP adds in another part of the Safety Metrics  –  Keeping Your Cool in a Hot Zone series

Public Use License Vitalov Muratov

“ As the company’s chief financial officer, what can you tell me about your companies experience modifier? “    

Answer: “ I  know that it is higher than it was last year. If memory serves me well I am 137. I have no idea how to reverse it, and our Insurance Broker seems to be of no help. If we hire you, can you get it turned around?  In fact, whoever we offer this position, must have a  game plan ready for management within ten days of being hired.   You left the interview at 10:30 A.M.  At 3:00 PM you get an e-mail with an offer letter.

Fast forward, one week later. You have spent a lot of time fact-finding,  and you have put together a game plan for getting the EX.Mod down or below 100.    The plan is really a rough draft because there are a lot of records which no one seems to be able to find. A very nice Receptionist who has been with the company for 19 years, shares with you the fact that XYZ has outgrown its corporate offices four times.  She also, tells you that a lot of the records are in storage. 

Two of the biggest issues is a lack of claims files,  and there are no copies of the OSHA consultant logs. There is a way around this apparent impasse, like anything else, it will take a lot of work requesting records.

This is your agenda of topics: 

1. Lack of records  and what we can do to get duplicates,
2. What has been done in the past and why it is not working,
3. A centralized incident reporting system
4. Show the CFO and Fanta ( your supervisor ) how you arrived at the fact of $189,637 loss due to the elevated Mod.
5. And the need for the Safety division of HR to have its own budget. 

This writer will only elaborate on topic B and C.  For more than a decade, all workers comp reporting has gone through the job Superintendents.  If there were ten different jobs going, and in multiple states, each job Super. Would have the authority to send his worker to the local Doc in the Box. If a clerical person or anyone else were to get hurt at the corporate office, the claim would go through the secretary for the V.P. of operations. Most of the claims were initiated by the Work Comp Doctors, from over a dozen different clinics.   

The problem with this “system”  is a lack of accountability, lack of accident info, unnecessary treatment by the Doctors. Management has agreed,  that a centralized system makes sense.   The CFO,  Handson T. Mony wants to know about the Numbers. 

            Mr. Mony  “ I’m a numbers guy, I want  to know how we are going to 

                                   Track your progress on all of these initiatives. I don’t

                                   Have a problem spending money to save money but

                                    Without the numbers, how do we know  if we are getting

                                  What we are paying for.”

 Nate          “ You sir are a wise man,  we will have a way of tracking our

                      Success but first we need to find our claims records.”

Mr. Mony    “ Well I suppose I could have our insurance Broker put us

                        In touch with the claims Department.

Nate             “ That Sir is an excellent idea.  Might I suggest, that we have

                       The broker arrange for a file review with the claims supervisor.”

Mr. Mony     “ I like the way you  think young man,  send me an email of some

                          Times you will be free, and I will set it up. “ 

Nate              “ Once we have our claims numbers   we can determine our

                          annual claims frequency.    Then we can set goals. “

You go on to tell Mr. Mony and Fanta,  that there are two ways to track progress.  One would be to use our internal numbers.  If for example, XYZ had 50 claims in 2018,  it could be a reasonable goal to reduce the claims frequency to say 40, or a 20 percent reduction.  The other way to set goals would be to compare our company’s claims frequency or severity with the industry average of companies with the same work comp class codes. 

Mr. Mony was intrigued by your ideas but he had to end the meeting quickly because he had a lunch meeting.   When leaving the CFO’s  office, your supervisor says, 

        “ Nate, are you hungry?  Let me buy you lunch, I want to hear more. “      

By Glen DuLac OSHA Consultant 

This blog post is provided by James Moore, AIC, MBA, ChFC, ARM, and is republished with permission from J&L Risk Management Consultants. Visit the full website at www.cutcompcosts.com.

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