Risk Profile Improvement
Happy New Year! These New Year’s resolutions are popular every year. Here’s information that can help you achieve your goals in 2015.
Lifting heavy items is one of the leading causes of injury in the workplace. In 2001, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over 36 percent of injuries involving missed workdays were the result of shoulder and back injuries. Overexertion and cumulative trauma were the biggest factors in these injuries.
When employees use smart lifting practices and work in their “power zone,” they are less likely to suffer from back sprains, muscle pulls, wrist injuries, elbow injuries, spinal injuries, and other injuries caused by lifting heavy objects.
via Ergonomics eTool: Solutions for Electrical Contractors – Materials Handling: Heavy Lifting.
Even though you may be feeling healthy, it’s important to get regular physical exams to help ensure that you stay that way.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine says regular physicals will allow your doctor to:
via Health Tip: Why Get an Annual Physical? – Drugs.com MedNews.
Drug use, abuse, or addiction among employees and their family members can cause expensive problems for business and industry, ranging from lost productivity, absenteeism, injuries, fatalities, theft and low employee morale, to an increase in health care, legal liabilities and workers’ compensation costs.
In addition, drug abuse can cause problems at work including:
Estimated Costs: Drug abuse costs employers $81 billion annually.
via Workplace.
It looks like Santa Claus has successfully passed his pre-flight inspection and is set for a safe take-off from the North Pole. It will be flight – North Pole Air # 122414.
According to Santa’s CFE (Chief Safety Elf) the list has been checked twice to see who was naughty or nice, cargo has been screened, his sleigh is loaded and his flight plan has been filed so he and his reindeer can set out to make their annual Christmas deliveries tonight.
Employers with poor loss histories will pay even more for their workers comp coverage again in2015 as most states changed the way premiums are calculated starting in 2013.
But policyholders with proven risk management practices and safety programs that reduce workplace injuries will benefit from NCCI Holdings Inc.’s change in the methodology determining an individual employer’s experience modification factor, experts say.
2013 marked the first time in two decades that the rating organization has updated the “split point” used in its experience rating plan to more accurately reflect individual employer loss frequency and severity. An employer’s ex-mod factor has a significant affect on employer expenses because underwriters rely on them to adjust premiums with credits or debits.
via New NCCI methodology will change premium calculations | Business Insurance.
Financial security in retirement doesn’t just happen. It takes planning and commitment and, yes, money.
Facts:
Putting money away for retirement is a habit we can all live with. Remember…Saving Matters!
An emergency action plan (EAP) is usually a written document required by particular OSHA standards. For smaller organizations, the plan does not need to be written and may be communicated orally if there are 10 or fewer employees [29 CFR 1910.38(b)]. The purpose of an EAP is to facilitate and organize employer and employee actions during workplace emergencies. The elements of the plan must include, but are not limited to:
via Evacuation Plans and Procedures eTool | Emergency Action Plan Expert System – Introduction.
For healthy adults in general, drinking more than these single-day or weekly limits is considered “at-risk” or “heavy” drinking:
• Men: More than 4 drinks on any day or 14 per week
• Women: More than 3 drinks on any day or 7 per week
About 1 in 4 people who exceed these limits already has alcoholism or alcohol abuse, and the rest are at greater risk for developing these and other problems. Again, individual risks vary. People can have problems drinking less than these amounts, particularly if they drink too quickly.
via What’s at-risk or heavy drinking? – Rethinking Drinking – NIAAA.
Lifestyle risk factors such as diet and exercise are part of controllable risk factors. Lifestyle risk factors are habits or behaviors people choose to engage in. If changed, they can directly affect some medical risk factors by improving them.