Behavior. One key mistake many companies make in creating a safety program is focusing almost exclusively on the physical plant -- looking to see if there are spills on the floor, for example. Cleaning up spills is important, but changing employees' habits to eliminate spills in the first place will slash accident rates even more.
Changing behavior is hard, of course, but Frontier has found some safety "accessories" that help. It encourages all buspersons and food servers to wear back-support belts. The corsetlike belt does more than support employees' backs; its stays dig uncomfortably into their midsections if they lift by bending over rather than by using their legs. Similarly, food preparers must don protective gloves before using knives or slicers, and waiters and buspersons must wear rubber-soled shoes. For the most part, says Doug Igleheart, former associate manager of one of the restaurants, employees regard the paraphernalia as a help rather than a nuisance. "I've got buspeople who won't start their shift if they don't find their back brace hanging in its regular spot," he says.
Incentives. Both restaurant managers and workers have a financial motive to run a safe operation. Two of the 19 categories in the managers' bonus evaluations relate to safety. A store may also compete against the three or four other stores in its unit to win $500 -- which is divided among store employees -- in every 28-day accounting period. To enter the competition, stores must submit self-inspection, corrective-action, and accident reports. The store with the fewest serious injuries wins. An alternative would be to levy financial penalties -- the most straightforward would be to charge an operating unit for the cost of its workers' comp claims.
To instill safety consciousness throughout the company, get employees involved as leaders of their peer groups. When Oatman redesigned Frontier's prevention program, she had store managers designate safety monitors at each restaurant, but she found they didn't effectively influence the other employees. Now she plans to replace monitors with safety committees comprising employees from each area of the restaurant. To underscore the importance of this activity, Frontier will pay the hourly employees for the additional time they spend on committee affairs.
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Design a Plan
Frontier's substitute for the Texas workers' comp plan is where it lays the groundwork for major cost savings on actual injuries. By design, the plan is both more generous and more restrictive than the state program. For example, Frontier pays 75% of an injured worker's wages and begins paying after three days of missed work. The state mandates payment of between 70% and 75% of wages (it paid even less -- 67% of wages -- when Frontier began its plan) and doesn't start payments until seven days of work have been missed. Both the state and Frontier pay all medical expenses for work-related injuries.
To be covered, however, Frontier workers must agree to certain conditions. Together, three conditions produce huge cost savings: employees agree to report accidents immediately, go to the physician or hospital Frontier specifies, and submit a written accident report within 48 hours. Those requirements enable Frontier to keep track of and communicate with injured employees, as well as to establish a good, ongoing relationship with the medical folk. As simple as those activities sound, they are the foundation for a truly cost-conscious approach to workers' compensation.
Even if you use an insurance company to cover workers' comp, you can institute those provisions to some degree. For example, about half the states will let you steer workers to a medical provider that you choose. If you're in a state that doesn't, you can still strongly suggest that employees go to the doctors you specify. Addtemps, a Houston company that is still insured and therefore part of Texas's state plan, immediately sends all injured workers to one clinic to be treated and assessed. Employees may subsequently go to a doctor of their choice, but in the meantime Addtemps can be satisfied that an employee's medical treatment is appropriate and that the company has protected itself.
Other important provisions in Frontier's plan: the company will not pay out benefits if the injury takes place while a worker is intoxicated, willfully trying to hurt someone, or engaged in horseplay. Those conditions conform to workers' comp state laws nationwide, so any company may impose similar requirements -- though the burden of proving intoxication, say, is on the employer. To prevent workplace injuries from coming back to haunt the company many years down the road, Frontier's plan requires workers who are treated, recovered, and back at work to sign a release of further liability. New employees are asked to sign a statement saying they have received a copy of Frontier's program, have been given a chance to ask questions about it, and have kept a copy for their personal records.
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Respond to Accidents
Here's where you can make a huge dent in excessive claims and fraud. When Frontier workers are hurt, their managers take them off the job and arrange immediate transportation to the Occupational Medical Clinic, a nearby practice with six doctors on staff that Frontier uses for all injuries. Then the manager alerts the San Antonio -- based Augustine & Associates, the company that processes Frontier's claims, which immediately begins planning employees' medical care with the clinic. As long as employees are out of work, their managers stay in touch with them.
The results of these simple steps? First, workers get the message that their employer cares about them. "The biggest source of excess costs is indifferent responses on the part of employers," says Michael Pritula, a principal at McKinsey & Co., a management-consulting firm in New York City. Second, through Augustine, Frontier is able to manage medical costs as they're incurred. Insurance companies rarely provide that kind of case management. The average workers' comp claim doesn't even reach an insurer until between 14 and 21 days after the injury. Finally, Frontier gets the vital feedback it needs to prevent future accidents. "We encourage employees to report all incidents, whether or not those incidents require medical care," Oatman explains. "We want to know about them because we want to know what is causing accidents."
