It’s no secret that frequent Workers’ Compensation insurance claims can put a financial drain on a business. To save money, many businesses implement a comprehensive health and safety management program. If you want to establish a safety program for your business, then you first need to conduct a root cause analysis.
“Once root causes of workplace injuries are identified, the appropriate safety and risk management procedures can be implemented which will help prevent future injuries before they occur, says Dave Brewer, PMC Risk Management Specialist. “This reduces claims frequency, drives down claims costs, improves experience mod, and lowers your premiums.”
Conducting a Workers’ Comp Root Cause Analysis
When an employee is injured at work, it’s important to document the incident and collect relevant information pertaining to the accident or injury. This information should then be reviewed in order to understand the factors that led up to the injury and identify potential issues. This process is known as a root cause analysis. This process is designed to uncover the underlying factors that caused the accident, and help employers address recurring issues to prevent the same problem(s) from happening in the future. The main goals of a root cause analysis include the following:
- Identifying the areas and processes where safety improvements can be made
- Using the collected evidence to develop loss control measures
- Encouraging employees, managers, executives, and other stakeholders to join the analysis process to promote a culture of safety in the workplace
- Reducing the risk of future injuries and reducing the cost of Workers’ Comp claims
Experts note that businesses should not only conduct root cause analyses in response to injuries, it’s also important in the case of close calls. These near-miss incidents can also help employers identify potential dangers in their workplace.
Preventing Accidents, Injuries and Workers’ Compensation Claims
There are steps you can take to reduce the risk of a Workers’ Compensation claim before the employee is even hired. “Performing thorough pre-hire interviews and evaluations can help you to identify and weed out potential insurance ‘predators’ who are looking for work only to claim a potentially fraudulent injury, and drain your organization of valuable resources and the productivity essential to your company’s operations.” Says Dave.
Steps to prevent accidents and injuries include effective safety and health management measures such as:
- Having HR screen for behavioral and personality traits like resilience, compliance, or disobedience, and risk-taking
- Having HR staff emphasize your company’s safety culture and the importance of compliance with safety procedures
- Educating and training new employees in their job duties
- Recognizing or rewarding those employees who follow safety procedures and implementing real consequences for those who do not follow procedures
- Investigating and reviewing near misses, injuries, and work practices to identify safety weaknesses
- Updating safety procedures as necessary
- Training your employees in new or updated safety procedures
Conducting a Workers’ Compensation root cause analysis is an important part of a business’s health and safety management program. And securing the right Workers’ Compensation coverage is another important part of managing workplace risk. If you have any questions about managing risk or Workers’ Compensation solutions contact the experts at PMC Insurance Group.
