When Tim Hahn was promoted to safety manager for Indianapolis Newspapers Inc. in 1994, he inherited a problem spiraling out of control. Accident rates at the plant had increased 10 percent a year over the previous five years.
What a difference the last two years have made. Through a team effort that included Hahn, Janice Phillips, Sandy Seward and everyone from the insurance carrier to employees on the floor, Indianapolis reduced its lost-time accidents by 66 in 1995.
The numbers continue to improve. For first quarter 1996, there were just 23 lost-time accidents, down 45 percent over the same period in 1995. Days lost due to accidents have decreased more than 90 percent, from 819 days in Q1 1995 to just 71 days in Q1 1996.
Indianapolis Newspapers is a 1,600-employee operation that produces the Indianapolis Star, a morning paper with a circulation of 231,000, and the Indianapolis News, an evening paper with a circulation of 86,000. The Sunday Star has a circulation of 405,000.
Hiring a case manager--a suggestion from the newspaper's insurance carrier--was the first step in curbing costs. Case Manager Nanette Gray helps set clinic appointments and guides injured employees through the clinic procedure, ensuring they get proper therapy. She also sets a timetable for injured employees to come back to work.
Before Gray was hired, accidents were "rubber-stamped" through the system with little monitoring. The system was set up so that employees went to the clinic for nearly every injury, Hahn says.
Today, employees go to the clinic only when absolutely necessary. "We're not denying care, we're just taking a harder look at it," Hahn explains. "It may sound hardnosed, but it's not. It's good business for employer and employee alike."
The next step was establishing an alternate-duty program. Previously, injured employees with work restrictions were almost never allowed back to work until the restrictions were lifted. Today, there's always work for injured employees--even if it's something as simple as answering phones or topping off bundles.
To keep in touch with safety problems in the trenches, Hahn replaced a 25-member safety committee of mostly supervisors with a six- to eight-member committee of rank-and-file employees. The problems they identify, which range from burned-out bulbs inside "Exit" signs to missing fire extinguishers, must be addressed as quickly as possible.
Finally, an incentive program rewards departments for accident-free months. If a targeted department reduces accident rates by 50 percent over the previous year, those employees get a $2 bill in their pay envelope. If they reduce accidents by 50 percent for two months in a row, they get three $2 bills. For the third month, they get five $2 bills. Employees love the program, Hahn reports.
Stuffing paycheck envelopes with $2 bills can cost the newspaper $4,000 to $5,000 in an accident-free month. Yet that's peanuts compared to the cost of a single lost-time accident, which Hahn estimates at $20,000 to $25,000 factoring in all the hidden costs, including therapy, paperwork, insurance and job replacement.
What impressed NAA's judges the most was the dramatic decrease in lost-time accidents and total accidents, says NAA Environmental Services Manager Donald Hensel. "If you can get the employee back to work quickly, you're saving the company a lot of money," Hensel says.
Hensel also thinks it's commendable that a newspaper the size of the Star-News would hire a case manager. While some newspapers might think they couldn't justify the cost, the money saved from avoiding workman's compensation claims would probably pay for the manager's salary and then some, he says.
Andrew Bowser is a regular contributor to TechNews.
Sources
Don Hensel, NAA, 11600 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, Va., 20191. E-mail, hensd@naa.org; phone, (703) 648-1215; fax, (703) 648-1333.
Richard Dawson and Tim Hahn, Indianapolis Newspapers Inc., 307 N. Pennsylvania St., Indianapolis, Ind., 46206-0145. Phone, (317) 633-1240; fax, (317) 633-1174.
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