Risk Management – Page 20 – Risk Management 365

The Distracted Driving Epidemic

Distracted driving has become an epidemic in the United States, and its often fatal consequences are a threat to your workers, your business and the public.

Because millions of workers’ jobs require them to spend part or all of their work day driving ― visiting clients and customers, making site visits, or delivering goods and services ― the Departments of Labor (DOL) and Transportation (DOT) are joining forces in a campaign to stop distracted driving and save lives.

Year after year, the leading cause of worker fatalities is motor vehicle crashes. There’s no question that new communications technologies are helping business work smarter and faster. But getting work done faster does not justify the dramatically increased risk of injury and death that comes with texting while driving.

The human toll is tragic. DOT reports that in 2009, more than 5,400 people died in crashes linked to distraction and thousands more were injured. “Texting while driving” has become such a prominent hazard that 30 states now ban text messaging for all drivers.

via Distracted Driving.

Benefits of Employee Recognition in the Workplace

When you have offices, departments and teams of loyal, committed, trained and qualified staff, you are reducing your risk. Give everyone an annual raise, make sure the air conditioning runs in the summer and the heat in the winter and voila… resignations will stop and retention is achieved. Right?

Wrong! Having an efficiently run work environment with comfortable temperatures and scheduled pay raises won’t be enough to retain your staff. It will be enough to get them to show up every morning — but to take initiative, meet schedules and deadlines, operate with a seriousness of purpose and drive — that requires relationship-building and employee recognition programs that work.

via Benefits of Employee Recognition in the Workplace: Reduced Risk & Raised Revenues | EHS Today | Safety content from EHS Today.

Work Zone Safety Tips

Everyone plays a role in maintaining a safe work zone area during roadway construction. To play your part, follow these tips while driving through a work site:

DO…

Pay attention to the orange diamond-shaped warning signs or electronic message boards posted in advance of a road construction project.
Stay alert. Dedicate your full attention to driving.
Minimize distractions. Avoid changing radio stations, using a cell phone, etc. while driving in a work zone.
Drive carefully and slowly through the construction site; always obey the posted speed limits in the work zone area.
Pay close attention and heed directions on work zone warning signs. Signs and work zone flaggers save lives.
Watch for stopped or slowing traffic. Do not tailgate.
Expect the unexpected. Anticipate potential dangers.
Watch how the traffic ahead is flowing.
Keep an eye out for construction workers, their equipment and vehicles, as well as the vehicles around you.
Use extra caution when driving through a site at night.
Watch for detours and lane diversions.

DO NOT…

Speed up or slow down significantly while going through a work zone.
Slow down to look at the construction work being done.
Resume normal speed until after you emerge completely out of the work zone area.
Tailgate. Most of the accidents within a work zone are rear-end collisions.
Change lanes within a work zone.

Most states have instituted new laws regarding work zones; penalties for speeding in these areas are double that of the normal penalties for speeding in a non-work zone stretch of road.

via Work Zone Safety Tips | EHS Today | Construction content from EHS Today.

Business Case for Safety and Health

Employers that invest in workplace safety and health can expect to reduce fatalities, injuries, and illnesses. This will result in cost savings in a variety of areas, such as lowering workers’ compensation costs and medical expenses, avoiding OSHA penalties, and reducing costs to train replacement employees and conduct accident investigations. In addition, employers often find that changes made to improve workplace safety and health can result in significant improvements to their organization’s productivity and financial performance.

via Business Case for Safety and Health – Benefits.

Conflict Resolution

Are people fighting more these days, or does it just seem that way? Whatever the case, learning to resolve conflicts can help young people break down barriers, become leaders, and even prevent deadly confrontations.

Conflict can be negative – in its ultimate form it can lead to war – but it can also be positive, depending on how it’s resolved. For example, it can help get feelings out in the open, help people learn from disagreements, resolve problems, gain someone more respect, or enable people to learn that others are willing to stand up for themselves and what they believe in. In fact, conflict is a natural human process that doesn’t have to lead to violence; conflict resolution and anger management techniques can provide opportunities for people to grow and improve their relationships and the quality of life of those around them despite the inevitable disagreements that arise.

via Conflict Resolution — National Crime Prevention Council.

Safety and Health Add Value

Addressing safety and health issues in the workplace saves the employer money and adds value to the business. Recent estimates place the business costs associated with occupational injuries at close to $170 billion – expenditures that come straight out of company profits.

When workers stay whole and healthy, the direct cost-savings to businesses include:

lower workers’ compensation insurance costs;
reduced medical expenditures;
smaller expenditures for return-to-work programs;
fewer faulty products;
lower costs for job accommodations for injured workers;
less money spent for overtime benefits.

Safety and health also make big reductions in indirect costs, due to:

increased productivity;
higher quality products;
increased morale;
better labor/management relations;
reduced turnover;
better use of human resources.

Employees and their families benefit from safety and health because:

their incomes are protected;
their family lives are not hampered by injury;
they have less stress.

Simply put, protecting people on the job is in everyone’s best interest – our economy, our communities, our fellow workers and our families. Safety and health add value to businesses, workplaces and lives.

via Employee Health and Safety – SmallBusinessNotes.com.

Benefits of Risk Management

Risk management provides a clear and structured approach to identifying risks. Having a clear understanding of all risks allows an organization to measure and prioritize them and take the appropriate actions to reduce losses. Risk management has other benefits for an organization, including:

Saving resources: Time, assets, income, property and people are all valuable resources that can be saved if fewer claims occur.
Protecting the reputation and public image of the organization.
Preventing or reducing legal liability and increasing the stability of operations.
Protecting people from harm.
Protecting the environment.
Enhancing the ability to prepare for various circumstances.
Reducing liabilities.
Assisting in clearly defining insurance needs.

An effective risk management practice does not eliminate risks. However, having an effective and operational risk management practice shows an insurer that your organization is committed to loss reduction or prevention. It makes your organization a better risk to insure.

via Risk Management: Introduction.

The Dangers of Arc Flash Incidents

The flash is instantaneous, almost too fast for the eye to comprehend. But the end result of this incident could be more than $15 million in direct and indirect costs to a company.

What is arc flash?

An arc flash is a short circuit through the air. When insulation or isolation between electrified conductors is breached or can no longer withstand the applied voltage, an arc flash occurs. As employees work on or near energized conductors or circuits, movement near or contact with the equipment, or a failure of the equipment, may cause a phase-to-ground and/or a phase-to-phase fault.

The temperature of an arc can reach more than 5000 F as it creates a brilliant flash of light and a loud noise. An enormous amount of concentrated radiant energy explodes outward from the electrical equipment, spreading hot gases, melting metal, causing death or severe radiation burns, and creating pressure waves that can damage hearing or brain function and a flash that can damage eyesight. The fast-moving pressure wave also can send loose material such as pieces of equipment, metal tools, and other objects flying, injuring anyone standing nearby.

via The Dangers of Arc Flash Incidents – MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY.

Risk Management in Human Resources

There are two types of roles in Risk Management. People are a source of risk. Shortage of right kind of employees at a right time, attrition of experienced employees, employee leaving after completion of a one-year training program, employees doing sloppy work due to lack of competencies, handling customers very badly, an employee unwilling to take on additional responsibility or high absentee employees.

People are important in handling risk. People using their skill to solve unexpected problems, employees going the extra mile for the organization, an employee becoming multi-skilled, redesigning his own job to avoid unnecessary delays in getting work done, or evolving new process to resolve the problem or an employee persuading a talented friend to apply for a position and join the organization.

via Devising risk management in human resources.

Insurance is NOT Risk Management

Risk management includes the following five processes:

Identification: The process of identifying exposures (whether financial, social, physical, juridical, political, or otherwise) that face the organization.
Analysis: Determine how these exposures impact or could impact the organization.
Control: Determine how to control these exposures by eliminating them or reducing their effect.
Finance: The step where it is determined how will these exposures be dealt with as they arrive? Through insurance premiums paid in advance, or through internal funds, etc.
Administration: The final step in the process is to put all the above work together into practice, and ultimately to start over.

Risk Management is a process that builds on each step. Insurance falls into Step 4 Finance…it’s critical to implement the first 3 steps to be rewarded in Step 4 with lower costs.