Risk Management Bulletin

This real-life case reinforces the need for every business to provide OSHA-required training.

A West Virginia company assigned a new employee – call him Jim – to drive a forklift, even though he had no experience or training in forklift operation “There’s nothing to it,” his supervisor told Jim. “It’s just like driving a car.” However, his first few weeks on the job turned out to be bumpy. Several times on each shift, while driving the forklift, he would knock things over. Although the supervisor warned Jim to be more careful, he continued to bump his way through the workday, leaving a trail of destruction wherever he went.

About three weeks after being hired, Jim’s supervisor instructed him to drive down a narrow aisle between two rows of stacked, loaded pallets. After objecting, Jim reluctantly proceeded down the aisle. His left foot, which was dangling outside the forklift where it shouldn’t have been, became pinned between the forklift and the wall of pallets. Jim suffered multiple fractures of the foot, together with a badly twisted knee; both injuries required surgery. Instead of going back to work, Jim went to court, filing suit against his employer and his supervisor for negligence.

His argument was clear: The company and his supervisor failed to provide safety training that could have prevented the accident. Jim’s attorney told the court that, although OSHA regulations mandated specific training, testing, and certification for forklift operators, the company had not trained, tested, or certified him. This meant that Jim should not have been operating a forklift – and if he hadn’t been doing so, the accident would not have taken place.

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia agreed, ruling there was sufficient evidence to prove that both the employer and the supervisor were negligent. When they hired the employee; they knew that federal law required proper training or certification of forklift operators. Allowing Jim to drive a forklift without proper training was an act of negligence.

The message: Failure to provide OSHA-required training is a huge mistake. Whenever you hire new employees or assign workers to new jobs with new hazards, make sure that they receive proper training from the get-go. Never allow an employee to operate dangerous equipment or perform any other hazardous job until they have completed the required training and demonstrated competence, as well as understanding the hazards and necessary precautions.

OSHA compliance is essential for your small business. By law, you’re required to provide a safe workplace for your employees, and you want to ensure everyone on your team stays safe. Maintaining OSHA compliance can be complicated, though. Follow eight tips and take the guesswork out of OSHA compliance in your small business’s daily operations.

Understand OSHA Regulations

While OSHA is operated by the federal government, states also establish OSHA regulations. You’re responsible to follow both the federal and state guidelines. In cases, where the federal and state guidelines differ, follow the stricter guidelines to ensure your business is compliant.

Hire a Safety Officer

Safety is the job of every employee, but your designated safety officer is the go-to person for safety plans, training and compliance. Hire a safety officer or designate an employee to take on this responsibility for your business.

A safety officer’s duties will include:

• Stay updated on OSHA regulations.
• Create an employee safety plan.
• Train employees on OSHA standards.
• Identify and correct hazards.
• Assess compliance.
• Oversee the safety committee.

Train Employees

All of your employees, from officer personnel to warehouse workers, must know and follow OSHA guidelines. Take three steps as you ensure your employees maintain OSHA compliance every day.

• Train new employees on required safety protocols.
• Provide regular safety trainings for all employees.
• Implement an open door policy where employees can ask questions or report hazards without repercussions.

Encourage a Safety Culture

Every employee should know that they’re an important part of your small business’s safety culture. They should see that you prioritize safety, and they should know that their contribution to safety is valued. Make safety part of your everyday conversations and reward safe behavior with incentives as you encourage a safety culture.

Update Equipment

Fire extinguishers expire, non-slip flooring wears out and safety signs can fade. Update all your safety equipment regularly to ensure it operates properly.

Also, update equipment and your building as needed. Worn floors, broken door handles and loose stair railings are all safety hazards that must be fixed.

Perform Safety Drills

Every employee should know how to exit the building if a fire starts and what to do during a chemical spill. Perform regular safety drills as you help everyone stay safe.

Investigate Safety Violations

When you see or hear about potential safety violations, investigate immediately. Then make necessary changes as you ensure OSHA compliance.

Take OSHA Compliance Seriously

In the midst of daily operations, it’s easy to overlook safety. However, you must take OSHA compliance seriously. Investigate every complaint, know the law and encourage safe operations as you take compliance seriously.

With these eight tips, your small business maintains OSHA compliance. Your employees stay safe and you follow the law, too.

One of the best ways to protect workers in a particular job is to conduct a job hazard analysis. This simple but powerful technique identifies hazards before they occur, focusing on the relationships among the worker, task, tools and equipment, and the work environment. Once you’ve identified job hazards, you can eliminate or reduce them to an acceptable risk level.

This is a relatively easy task, although it takes time to analyze hazards for each job category and each step in the job. You also have to do some digging into past performance.

Priority should go to jobs with the highest injury or illness rates; the potential to cause severe or disabling injuries or illness through simple human error, complex enough to require written instructions; or that have undergone changes in processes and procedures.

Job hazard analysis involves these steps:

Involve employees. Their unique understanding of the job can be invaluable for finding hazards. Involving employees will help minimize oversights, ensure quality analysis, and get workers to buy in to the solutions because they’ll share ownership in their safety and health program.

Review accident history. This includes the workplace record of accidents and occupational illnesses, accident damage that required repair or replacement, and any near misses. These are indicators that existing hazard controls might be inadequate and need more scrutiny.

Conduct a preliminary job review. Discuss with employees the hazards they know exist in their work and surroundings. Brainstorm with them for ideas to eliminate or control these perils. Of course, if any hazards pose an immediate danger to an employee’s life or health, take immediate action to protect the worker.

List, rank, and set priorities. List jobs with hazards that present unacceptable risks, based on those most likely to occur and with the most severe consequences. Make these jobs your first priority for analysis.

Outline steps or tasks. Nearly every job can be broken down into job tasks or steps. When beginning a job hazard analysis, watch the employee perform the job and list each step (it might help to photograph or video the worker performing the job – these visual records can provide handy references when doing a more detailed analysis of the work). Record enough information to describe each job action without getting bogged down in details.

Avoid making the breakdown so detailed that it becomes unnecessarily long or so broad that it fails to include basic steps. Review the job steps with the employee to make sure you haven’t omitted anything. Stress that you’re evaluating the job itself, not the employee’s job performance.

Identify hazards. List the hazards you identified in Step 3 (as well as any additional hazards you discovered when observing the employee) with each step or task involved in the job.

You face risks every day in real life and must decide if you’ll lock your house doors or buckle your seat belt. Your small business faces risks, too. Answer the question why use a risk management consultant as you successfully navigate your business risks.

Get Customized, Objective Advice

While all small businesses face risks, each business is different. A risk management consultant considers every aspect of your specific business from operations to technology without bias. They then create a customized, objective plan for your unique needs.

Identify Risks and Solutions

As a small business owner, you focus on producing widgets or baking cakes. You may not know all the risks you face. A risk management consultant will identify your risk and the solutions that address those risks.

Develop an Accurate Safety Plan

Safety must be one of your top priorities and is achieved when you follow an accurate safety plan. Your risk management consultant helps you develop a plan that fits your needs, and they will evaluate your plan regularly to ensure ongoing safety.

Evaluate Compliance

Your business must comply with a variety of federal, state and local policies or you could jeopardize your employees’ safety and face steep fines. Utilize your risk management consultant to ensure your company’s compliance.

Prepare for Inspections

Depending on your industry, you may undergo regular facility or quality control inspections. Be prepared to ace those inspections with assistance from your risk management consultant.

Improve Performance

Your small business may have a successful history, but you must plan for a successful future, too. Hire a risk management consultant to ensure your business continues on a course toward future success.

Navigate Change

The business world frequently changes, and you must change with it. Rely on your risk management consultant to stay updated about changes in consumer trends and technology. With their help, you stay current, trendy and successful.

Maximize Your Time

As a small business owner, you are responsible for every aspect of your company. You only have 24 hours in a day, though. A risk management consultant takes on this responsibility and frees you for other tasks.

Receive Ongoing Support

A risk management consultant helps you identify, handle and address risks now. However, this relationship also provides ongoing support as you continue to maintain compliance.

Why use a risk management consultant? Your small business gains nine key benefits that help you achieve success now and into the future.

Many think of fraud as a non-violent crime. In reality, vehicle insurance scams, including staged traffic accidents, are far from non-violent. Aside from costing honest consumers hundreds to thousands of dollars in added insurance premiums, this steadily growing form of fraud has resulted in countless injuries and deaths to innocent victims of the scams. In fact, data from the NICB (National Insurance Crime Bureau) shows that staged traffic accidents have rapidly become a leading source of insurance fraud nationwide.

How Does It Work?

These criminally staged collisions frequently involve several suspects driving a car. The victim is the driver of another vehicle that’s being targeted by the suspects staging the collision for their own financial gain. The suspects will most often use one of two techniques:

Swoop and Squat.

Two or more suspects drive two different vehicles. They target an unsuspecting vehicle, most often an older model that only contains one victim. This is done so that there will not be any witnesses to the collision. The one or two suspects in the squat vehicle position their car in front of the vehicle driven by the victim. They slow to create a smaller space gap between themselves and their victim.

Then, the swoop vehicle suddenly changes lanes to cut in front of the squat, thereby causing the squat vehicle to throw on breaks and stop. As a result, the innocent victim rear-ends the squat. Meanwhile, the swoop vehicle is long gone and the squat vehicle is claiming that an unknown vehicle cut them off and forced them to brake.

The Drive Down or Wave On.

In this version, the suspect(s) are stopped at the entrance to a parking lot or an intersection. They wave on or yield the right-of-way to the victim. When the victim proceeds, the suspect intentionally accelerates to collide with the victim.

What Can Drivers Do to Reduce the Risk of Being a Victim?

Stay aware of your surroundings, paying close attention to what the vehicles several in front, behind, and beside you are doing and maintaining sufficient room between you and all other vehicles. Use caution when making a turn in front of another vehicle, even if they yield the right-of-way.

Since suspects tend to look for innocent drivers that accidentally cross the center line and then sideswipe them, pay close attention to staying within the lines of a lane.

After any accident, count the number of passengers and get their personal information. You might find that more people are listed on the insurance claim than were actually in the accident.

Avoid driving when you’re stressed; preoccupied with a cell phone, map, or food; or lethargic. All of these lessen the care with which you drive and your concentration abilities, thereby increasing your vulnerability.

Have a camera in your vehicle to take photos of the scene, license plates, and the occupants of the vehicle with which you have an accident.

Always call the police and get a copy of the police report. If the damage to the other car is minor, then ask the officer to specify this on the report, as this will make it more difficult for the other party to create more damage for a larger claim.

Alert the authorities if you feel the accident was staged.

In closing, these staged traffic accidents often have criminal elements that reach far beyond just the suspected drivers. It’s often a criminal collaboration among unscrupulous doctors and attorneys who willingly and knowingly assist in the fraudulent insurance claim process.

Have you audited your practices for these common wage and hour exposures?

Exempt vs. non-exempt. Have you classified your exempt employees properly or are you risking an overtime exposure?

Rest and meal period violations. Is the employee truly relieved from work and are your time-keeping clocks tracking meals accurately?

Travel time. Many workers who start from their home and then go to multiple locations fall under “portal-to-portal laws.”

1099 misclassification. This is a significant exposure. The IRS and state agencies are looking to find as many people as they can who are classified as employees.

Failure to pay prevailing wage. If you’re working a government or quasi-government project, make sure you’re complying with all wage requirements.

As a motor trader, you buy and sell automobiles and possibly recreational vehicles, all terrain vehicles and other motorized vehicles. Your job involves more than selling cars, though. You may also test drive automobiles, transport vehicles to different locations, talk to customers throughout the community and maybe even perform light mechanics. Make sure you have motor traders Workers’ Compensation through your employer as you protect yourself.

What is Motor Trades Workers’ Compensation?

The federal government mandates that every business must carry Workers’ Compensation for its employees. This valuable coverage ensures you receive the professional and adequate medical treatment you deserve if you are injured on the job or suffer from a work-related illness. It minimizes time off work and the financial burden injuries and illnesses may bring.

Your Workers’ Compensation insurance policy provides several important financial resources, including all the required medical treatment associated with treating your workplace injury or illness such as doctor visits, physical therapy, lab testing or other procedures. It can also replace a portion of the wages you lose when you’re off work recuperating.

Your Workers’ Compensation coverage may also provide benefits like:

• Safety training that helps you identify hazards and adopt safe practices
• Medical treatment plan review
• Billing review to ensure accuracy
• Vocational assistance that helps you return to work as soon as you’re medically approved

Where to Buy Motor Traders Workers’ Compensation

Your employer will purchase Workers’ Compensation insurance for you. Talk to your Human Resources manager to ensure you have adequate motor traders Workers’ Compensation benefits.

How to File a Motor Traders Workers’ Compensation Claim

Maybe you slip on wet stairs and sprain your ankle or get sick from breathing fumes during an office renovation. File a Workers’ Compensation claim as soon as possible after the incident.

Your supervisor or HR manager will provide the official Workers’ Compensation form you must complete. It will include details of the injury or illness such as how, when and where it occurred. You may also provide the names of any witnesses to your accident.

How to Claim Workers’ Compensation Benefits

After your Workers’ Compensation claim is approved, you may seek appropriate medical treatment from a provider in your Workers’ Compensation policy network. If you choose to see a medical professional who’s not on the approved network list, you will pay out-of-pocket for any associated expenses.

Additionally, complete any prescribed treatment or you may forfeit your benefits. Your doctor or therapist will let you know when you can return to work.

Motor traders Workers’ Compensation provides financial resources if you are injured or suffer an illness at work. Discuss the details of your coverage with your HR manager as you stay safe on the job.

About three in four drug or alcohol abusers have jobs – and they don’t leave their problems at the door when they arrive at work! According to OSHA, an effective drug-free workplace program should have five components:

A Drug-Free Workplace Policy. Your policy should include a stated purpose or rationale, a clear description of prohibited behaviors, and an explanation of the consequences of violating the policy Supervisor Training. Have your supervisors trained in understanding the policy and its implications, recognizing and dealing with employees who have substance-related performance problems, and referring these employees to available assistance. Make supervisors responsible for monitoring employee performance, staying alert to performance problems, and enforcing the policy.

Employee Education.

Effective education addresses company-specific details about the policy and program, together with general information about the nature of substance abuse; its impact on work, health, and personal life; and types of available assistance. You can provide education through safety meetings and training sessions, home mailings, workplace displays, brown-bag lunches, guest speakers, seminars, and new-hire orientation sessions.

Workplace Assistance.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) offer an alternative to dismissal and minimize the employer’s legal vulnerability by demonstrating efforts to support substance-abusing workers who need help. EAPs provide counseling and referrals, plus other services such as supervisor training and employee education. If you don’t offer these services, maintain a resource file from which employees can access information about community-based resources, treatment programs, and help lines

Drug Testing.

The most common test is urinalysis. Other types are the breath-alcohol test, blood test, hair analysis, and saliva or sweat tests. Reasons for testing include pre-employment screenings, reasonable suspicions of use, post-accident, return-to-duty, random, and periodic tests. Private employers have latitude in implementing testing, unless they’re subject to federal regulations (for example, the U.S. Department of

Transportation drug-testing rules for employees in safety-sensitive situations). Many employers use testing guidelines by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Finally, bear in mind that creating and implementing a successful drug-testing program takes time and patience!

As a contractor, you design, build and repair homes and other structures. Purchase contractors professional liability insurance coverage to protect your assets.

What is Contractors Professional Liability?

In the 1990s, contractors professional liability coverage was introduced primarily for contractors who design and build projects. This insurance covers financial obligations associated with fixing an error or omission made by you or the subcontractors you hire.

What Does Contractors Professional Liability Cover?

Contractors professional liability insurance covers a variety of work-related circumstances, including:

• Negligence by you or one of your hired subcontractors
• Design errors caused by your or one of designers you hire
• Faulty workmanship by you or one of your hired subcontractors
• Cost overruns or delays caused by bad sequencing or lack of coordination

Additional coverage provided by contractors professional liability may include these options. Check your specific policy for details.

• Pollution coverage for claims involving pollution from job-site activities, including failure to detect pollutants
• Indemnity coverage if you must file a first-party claim against the project’s architect or engineer who is liable for the loss

What’s the Difference Between General and Professional Liability?

To ensure you purchase the right coverage for your business, understand the difference between general liability and professional liability.

General liability will cover bodily injury and property damage that occurs because of ordinary construction means and methods, including contract breaches. It’s definitely essential, but professional liability is important, too. It covers costs associated with damage that result from your failure to render professional services.

As an example, let’s say the handicap ramp you construct for a local business fails. You can only file a claim through your general liability policy if someone is injured or the property is damaged. Otherwise, you’ll need a professional liability policy to cover the cost of replacing the ramp.

How to Purchase Contractors Professional Liability

Purchase a contractors professional liability policy through your commercial insurance agent. You will want to purchase an annual policy based on your operational needs. Additionally, you may purchase a policy for specific projects especially if they’re extensive.

In most cases, you’ll want a true professional liability policy. You can add professional liability coverage as an endorsement or umbrella policy on your general liability policy, but it typically offers limited coverage that’s inadequate for your needs.

It’s important that as a contractor you understand your responsibilities for completing projects properly, on time and on budget. There are always risks in your industry, so purchase contractors professional liability insurance. It can pay for mistakes and protect your assets as you perform your job.

If you revisit some of the lessons learned in basic high school science classes, you will probably remember that 78% of the air we breathe is nitrogen gas. If you think a little more, you may also recall that nitrogen is only safe to breathe when mixed with the right amount of oxygen. That simple lesson, learned so many years ago, may save your life if you frequently work in confined spaces.

Before entering any confined work space, there are several critical points you must consider. First, is the work area defined as a confined space according to OSHA? OSHA’s definition states that a confined space is any area where an employee must squeeze in or out through narrow openings and perform their tasks while cramped or contorted. Entry and exit are difficult, and employees are not to remain in the space for lengthy periods of time.

If your work space fits this description, you must also determine if it has a dangerous atmosphere or shows the potential for you to become trapped or even asphyxiated. If so, this space will be designated as a “permit space,” and will require a permit for entry. The employer who allows an employee entry must develop a written safety program for their permit-required spaces.

Your gas monitor plays a crucial part in securing your safety when you are working in a confined space. You need to be certain that you know how to properly operate the instrument and that you fully understand the procedures for confined space monitoring. Taking these steps will lessen the risks associated with this type of work significantly. Do not allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security because you are working in a familiar setting. If you take unnecessary risks, you may, unfortunately, only be working in the space for a short time.

Another element of safely working in a confined area is to have an attendant who will maintain contact with you while you are working. Be certain that this person is not involved with any other tasks or distractions and that they remain outside of the confined space at all times. If you will be confined in the space for an extended period of time, this person should record additional atmospheric readings to monitor the safety of the confined space. The attendant should also know exactly what the potential hazards are, and have a plan in place in case of an emergency.

If an emergency situation does arise, the attendant needs to immediately implement the rescue plan that was developed by the employer. No matter what type of rescue situation occurs, the attendant must try to maintain contact with you during the entire rescue process. They should also attempt to gather information about the incident that may be helpful to the rescuers. Their position as “point man” between you and the rescue team can make all the difference in the success of the rescue effort.