Got an accident-prone worker? Learn what HR should do

No workers want to get hurt on the job, and most are trained on how to prevent injuries. But preventable injuries still occur. What can the human resources department do about that? Just communicating the importance of safety procedures and working with supervisors and management on effective ways to promote safety make a good start.

Lawrence Young, owner and founder of risk management and safety consulting company Safe-Risk LLC, says employers have the ability to predict most safety problems, and if they can be predicted they can be prevented.

Young, who presented a BLR webinar titled Behavior-Based Safety: Tips for Addressing Accident-Prone and Other High-Risk Employees recently for Business & Legal Resources, has investigated many workplaces over the years, and he said he can usually put accident investigations into two buckets.

In one bucket, “the employee was well trained, knew the hazards, knew the hazard controls but failed on the performance side,” he said. In the other bucket “are those injuries caused by the employee not being trained, not knowing the hazard,” and those workers get hurt as a result of attempting to perform tasks they didn’t know how to perform.

Which bucket is fuller? The first one. Companies usually do a good job of training, “but the bump in the road comes when those behaviors start coming into play,” Young said, behaviors such as taking shortcuts and ignoring safety rules.

In the webinar, Young related a story of a longtime, trusted, and valued employee who was seriously injured when he drove a forklift off a loading dock. The employee had suffered numerous minor injuries in the past, but he was such a valuable team member that he always got a pass.

When the serious accident occurred, “this guy got a pass again,” Young said. The employer’s reaction was “Ah, it’s OK. … He’s our best worker. We won’t hassle him about it.”

The insurance company and U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration looked into the matter, “but the bottom line is, why did he get a pass?” Young said. “Why wasn’t management looking out for their best employee? If he was so valuable, why wouldn’t they go the extra mile to protect him?”

Protecting employees
Young says management is key to preventing injuries, and at least one manager should participate in all safety and health committee meetings, incident investigations, and site inspections. That sends a strong message. “If it’s important to the top people in the organization, it will be important to everyone else in the organization,” Young said.

Supervisors also play a crucial role and should hold frequent safety meetings highlighting the hazards workers face every day, Young said, adding that he often sees supervisors “drop the ball” by ignoring workers’ reports about safety hazards.

Employee selection
Young says employers often “hire their problems.” When employers are pushed to fill vacancies or staff new operations and expansions, they sometimes neglect even the most basic elements of selective hiring, which should at a minimum include an application, background check, reference check, interview, drug test, and risk assessment test.

Young advises employers to look into risk profiling tests that are available from insurers and HR organizations. Such tests help determine whether a potential employee exhibits the ability to make smart decisions about risk.

Even when hiring and training are done right, employers have to keep a close eye out for bad influences. Young told of an incident in a plant that had recently added a nightshift. Before starting up the nightshift operation, management brought in the new employees to work with the dayshift workers to learn procedures. After the nightshift started operations, the company placed an experienced worker with the new crew as a lead worker.

One night, the experienced worker suggested taking a shortcut by performing a housekeeping task while machinery was still running. All the employees knew that was a safety violation, but because the senior worker suggested the shortcut they went along, and one of the new workers suffered a life-threatening injury when he became entangled in a large chain-sprocket drive.

Identifying high-risk employees
In addition to careful hiring, employers go a long way toward improving safety when they identify the people and jobs causing the most problems, Young said. He advises HR to be on the lookout for employees who:

• Fail to follow instructions and job procedures.
• Clean, oil, adjust, or repair equipment that is moving or energized.
• Remove machine guards.
• Fail to wear personal protective equipment.
• Fail to secure or warn others before turning on a machine.
• Use the wrong piece of equipment for the wrong job.
• Use hands or body parts instead of using the right tool.
• Make safety devices inoperable.
• Operate or work at unsafe speeds.
• Take an unsafe position or posture, such as climbing on equipment.
• Make driving or traffic errors.
• Use tools or equipment known to be unsafe. Young says mechanics often bring their own tools to the workplace, and employers should have an inspection program to make sure all tools are safe and in proper working order.
• Engage in horseplay, which often results in “horrific injuries,” Young said.