Reducing Incidents Through Education of Open Book Management

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

From 2002 through 2006, the County averaged 65 Worker's Compensation claims per year at an average annual cost of $851,249. Injuries were handled and managed by a single person, and although a safety committee was active, only five or six employees formed the committee, so only a miniscule number of departments were represented. A Risk Manager was brought in by the County in 2004, and some procedures were improved, but the Risk Manager spent most of their time managing open and new claims. Very little was done in the way of developing pro-active prevention methods. The County realized that a different approach was necessary, and in 2007 it began to impliment a new safety and risk management program for its employees. The program is essentially a hybrid of behvior based and reward/incentive based models, and it strives to inspire commitment and participartion in County employees. The open book education approach that the County opted to take has increased employee involvement in problem solving by focusing more on having the employees answer questions for themselves, rather than having someone running a training program answer questions for them. In addition to a amjor increase in employee involvement, participation, and a renewed commitment from upper-level management, the Safety Committee and Wellness Committee attendance is over 95 percent, up from a mere 20 percent in years prior. Further, through these new risk management and safety training techniques, the County has saved $2,964.492 from 2006 through 2010, when compared to 2002 through 2006. Additionally, the average number of recordable injuries from 2002 through 2006 was 65, compared to 19 per year from 2007 to 2010.