This is the first in a series of three blogs that will focus on several basic, but important things construction companies can do to establish a strong workers compensation program that will increase options and make the companies more appealing candidates during either a hard or soft workers compensation market.

The most appealing candidates to workers compensation carriers are those that have an established, working safety program that results in no or very few work-related injuries. An effective safety program should include the following:

Written Program – The safety program should be written and should address the safety exposures unique to the company’s business and the processes employees should use to eliminate these risks and avoid injury. Each employee should be given a copy of this written safety program and required to read the program.

Training – In addition to the written program, employees should receive training on the risks associated with the type of work they are doing and the processes that should be followed to eliminate these risks. Training gives employees an opportunity to see practical application of the written program.

Near Miss and Accident Investigation – Despite the written program and training, at times, mistakes may be made or there may be a part of the program that needs improvement. All near misses and accidents should be investigated to find the root cause. Once the root cause of the near miss or accident is discovered, adjustments to the program can be made or training provided to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Ownership/Management Support – A safety program will only be effective if it is supported and enforced from the top down.

Justin Rowley is Vice President Risk Management at A Plus Benefits, Inc.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Human Resources, Risk Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.