Preventing Serious Injuries

All organizations can be susceptible to severe injuries in the workplace. Even the slightest shortcut or oversight can lead to tragic consequences, despite having formal procedures in place.

Besides tragically altering or ending peoples’ lives (and carrying extremely high financial costs), all these incidents have one thing in common: They were very likely preventable. When shortcuts are taken, processes bypassed or safety precautions are assumed, the probability of severe injuries or fatalities is greatly increased.

Safety Culture vs. Safety Climate

Your organization may have a strong safety culture with formal processes, accountability for safety, inspections, etc. But an inspection is just a snapshot of a moment in time and written processes alone do not prevent injuries. What are you doing to measure your safety climate?

Are you continuing to keep safety and expectations at the forefront of all daily communications with supervisors and employees?
Is company ownership/executive management, “walking the talk,” setting the example, and following through on expected consequences for unsafe behavior? Is safety valued and demonstrated by your actions?
Are supervisors empowered and expected to identify, stop immediately and coach employees observed taking shortcuts or engaging in unsafe behaviors?
Are you auditing your systems and safety culture to make sure they are functioning as intended?

An inspection is only a part of the safety culture. Making sure that culture continues to function as expected is an ongoing process of assessing existing, new, and temporary hazards and taking necessary action to establish adequate controls.

Don’t get lulled into complacency because you assume all is working. Take the steps to make sure. It could save an employee’s life!

Loss control consultation services are provided to our insureds by employees of the Strategic Comp Division of Great American Insurance Company (“GAI”) in conjunction with a workers’ compensation and employers liability insurance policy provided by one of GAI’s insurance subsidiaries. As stated in Part Six (A) of that policy, we do not provide safety inspections and we do not undertake a duty to provide for the health or safety of our insureds’ employees or the public. We do not warrant that all potential hazards and conditions have been evaluated and identified, or that they are safely controlled. We also do not warrant that our insureds’ workplaces are safe or healthful or that they comply with laws, regulations, codes or standards. The liability of GAI (and/or its affiliated subsidiaries) is limited to the terms, limits, and conditions of the insurance policies that it writes. GAI assumes no liability beyond that provided under the terms, limits, and conditions of the policies it has issued, when engaging in loss control consultation services. © 2023 Great American Insurance Company, 301 E. Fourth St., Cincinnati, OH 45202 5726-STC (6/23)