Coming in May – Award-Winning Safety Insights

Posted April 7, 2023 at 12:45 pm




For May’s Textile Services magazine, readers can get a leg-up on incident-prevention efforts from an award-winning expert, Brian Varner, a risk-management consultant with Safety Solutions for Healthcare, Denver.

His May article is titled “Get Proactive – Steps for Mitigating or Preventing Unsafe Work Environments.” Varner recently served as an instructor at TRSA’s Professional Management Institute (PMI). Last month, he was a joint recipient of a SafeTRSA Safety Excellence Award, along with Linen King, for safety improvements he helped implement at that company. Highlights of Varner’s key suggestions for enhancing safety in linen, uniform and facility services operations include:

  • Training: Satisfied with your safety-training program? Training is the foundation of a robust safety program. New-hire safety orientation and annual refresher safety training with quizzes are essential to ensure that everyone is aware of safety policies and procedures. Most workplace injuries occur in an employee’s first year, so an effective safety-training program can reduce claims, exposures and citations. 
  • Awareness: Does your organization have an effective safety awareness program? After training is completed, a regular communications program is critical to maintaining awareness of all safety issues. For starters, monthly safety-topics programs that address the safety issues of the organization is a great start. Awareness topics target a textile processing facility’s safety needs, such as slips and falls, strains, heat stress, etc.
  • Compliance: Are you conducting routine safety inspections? A comprehensive point-scored safety inspection that’s conducted routinely is one of the most beneficial tools for ensuring workplace compliance with OSHA standards. It’s important that an audit recap is presented to facility management immediately after the inspection. All “action items” must be noted, and they should include photographs of discoveries (e.g., slip and fall hazards, equipment guards missing, etc.). Management should correct all action items immediately and follow up to ensure that they are maintained.
  • Claims Management: Do you have someone on staff who’s experienced in reviewing the company’s loss run report? The loss run report, provided by the insurance carrier, is a valuable tool to understand what’s driving frequency and severity. These safety reports are roughly analogous – for insurance purposes – to a credit score. Loss run reports also provide information on trending and seasonal issues (e.g., heat exhaustion in the summer; slips and falls in the winter, etc.). 
  • Measurement: Are you measuring performance? What gets measured, gets done! A Safety and Risk Dashboard is a great tool for reviewing with leadership monthly because it will reveal both the successes and opportunities of a safety program. The dashboard should consist of year-to-year comparisons on: audit scores; total recordable incident rate (TRIR); days away restricted or transferred (DART); injuries; trains; and more. Managers should set goals and establish an action plan for all categories with results tied directly to leadership’s annual reviews and bonuses.
  • Safety Program: Is the right person overseeing your safety program? Credentials and education matter. However, does the individual overseeing your safety program have experience in industrial laundries? Moreover, do they exhibit a contagious passion for safety? Safety professionals should work in the plant or other facilities, training employees and managers, conducting inspections and visiting maintenance teams. The best safety programs feature collaboration between facility employees and the safety team.
  • Trouble Watch … Experience Modification Rate (EMR): The EMR is a key metric for how much a company will pay in insurance premiums. The EMR is a calculation that insurance companies use to price the cost of workers’ compensation premiums. The rating reviews the last three years, and reflect various lagging indicators, such as the severity and frequency of injuries. If your rate is above 1.0 or trending upwards, chances are you need help.

Click here for a sneak peek at a PDF version of the full article. Readers may contact Varner at brian.d.varner42@gmail.com or 303.319.8106.

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