Page 17 - Ohio RA 2011 Winter FlipBook

www.ohiorestaurant.org 15 Winter 2012 Issue

• The investigation should be conducted by the manager on duty. Anyone involved in the incident, no matter how minor, should provide the manager with a written statement.

• All injury investigation reports should be reviewed by the facility’s owner or general manager and remedial action taken.

• Investigation reports should be reviewed by the safety coordinator and directed also to the other managers and crew leaders.

• The investigation report should include photographs, sketches or other exhibits, when possible, to help clarify the facts in the accident. Reports should include detailed statements from all witnesses to the incident as well as anyone else who can contribute information.

Typically, the defciency of most accident investigations is the lack of follow-up action to correct the conditions and/or the acts that led to the accident. Document the specifc actions that will be taken, the person responsible for completing each item and the deadline for completion. Later, the safety coordinator or management should

follow up to ensure that the actions were implemented and are working. Unless root causes are identifed and corrective actions is undertaken, any investigation will offer no preventive beneft.

Once the investigation is completed and remedial action is taken, the fndings should be brought to the attention of all employees to ensure that:

1. Additional safety training and operational changes are made based on the facts involved in the accident; and 2. Let employees know about the actions taken to protect their safety and health.

It is important to gather employee suggestions since they often have intimate contact with the operation’s working conditions and may be able to contribute substantial feedback that should not be dismissed.

Additionally, by encouraging employees to participate in this type of procedure encourages their cooperation in preventing future injuries.

Using the Balanced Scorecard to Improve Safety Management

It will prove invaluable to the long-term success of your business

The balanced scorecard is a well-known management tool developed by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton. Over the years, companies have generally used the tool to facilitate change within their organization. The “balance” of the tool comes from its focus on four key areas of business, including serving the customer, fnancial health, operations and innovation. Anybody who has tried to please the customer, turn a proft and do it effciently can sympathize that managing a business truly is a balancing act. Add in the workforce’s need to constantly learn new skills and it is easy to see why so many managers are stressed.

Nevertheless, to compete, businesses must listen to their customers; have sound fnancial plans; operate effciently and invest in innovation – precisely why the balanced scorecard is such a powerful tool. A scorecard approach necessitates the use of measures to realistically indicate whether or not the objectives undertaken to improve in these key areas are, in fact, successful. Additionally, the approach requires a systemic view of the business by simultaneously requiring consideration of, at times, these conficting areas.

This article explores how the balanced scorecard can be used to improve your workplace safety program. Often, safety improvement initiatives fail because they require considerable change and facilitating change can be hard. I’ve seen numerous efforts to improve workplace safety fail

because they were unfocused, created ineffciencies, lacked staff commitment and, most often, rarely contained a fnancial plan.

Let’s begin with the customer. Rather than focusing on the external customer or those purchasing items from your menu, you want to consider the internal customer of the company’s safety program – i.e. your associates. Although you could undoubtedly develop benefts to the external customer, for simplicity’s sake, we’ll consider the customer to be your associates. Thus, our balanced scorecard for safety will consider the perspectives of associates, fnancials, processes and innovation.

Kaplan and Norton recommend that for each of these perspectives you ask the question: “If our vision succeeds, how will our performance differ in the four areas?” To address this question from the associate’s perspective, we need to consider what they really value. Often, we, as safety professionals, fnd that associates value simply being provided what they feel is the right equipment and training to be fully protected when performing risky tasks. You can quantify the impact of such an objective by auditing equipment usage or by conducting surprise compliance audits to see if the equipment is being used or the training applied. The question with such an approach always becomes: “Is there a sound fnancial argument for justifying the expenses associated with purchasing the equipment or conducting the training?”

This is where the balanced scorecard lends signifcant value.

From the fnancial perspective, if we succeed, our performance would differ by facilitating a reduction in the expenses associated with work-related injuries, ultimately in the form of workers’ compensation premium reductions or incurred costs for a self-insured employer. However, such reductions can take up to two to three years before they are realized. Therefore, your initial strategy could be to quantify what your current workers’ compensation expenses would be if historically you did not have the injuries you are hoping to prevent. Your insurer, TPA, broker or risk consulting frm should be able to assist you in quantifying these hypothetical savings. Other fnancial measures that could provide more immediate results could be costs associated with fnes, property and equipment damage, or turnover. Once your objectives result in actual cost reductions, you should take this opportunity to carve out a more permanent safety management budget to maintain your success.

Achieving safety success from the process perspective could take many approaches. It is very common to fnd that safety management improvements lead to process improvements, especially in the area of ergonomics. Again, the key here is to listen to the “customer” of the safety department. If your safety objectives cause process ineffciency, you will have to start over.