On Site Award: Safe & Sound
by Andrew Bowser
When The Portland Newspapers wellness and workers' compensation coordinator Kelly Noonan-Piccone visited a news bureau to discuss the purchase of wrist-rests and ergonomic computer workstations, reporters greeted her with a fair amount of skepticism.
Not surprising--up to that point, ongoing discussions about buying the equipment had led nowhere. The company did have health and safety committees, but they lacked representation from upper management, so they had no authority to carry out plans to improve working conditions.
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"Safe and Sound," initiated by Guy Gannett in 1994, has become a highly visible program within the company. The Safe and Sound logo is featured on all health and safety materials, and on various promotional items. |
The new rule: If a health or safety need arises, it must be addressed. The bureau got the ergonomic equipment, and a therapist has gone on-site several times to evaluate workstations and educate employees about reducing cumulative-trauma injuries like carpal-tunnel syndrome. "We heard what they had to say," Noonan-Piccone says. "There was no lip service."
This was all part of parent company Guy Gannett Communications' revamped safety practices. Various initiatives, grouped together as the "Safe & Sound" program, have helped reduce serious injuries and slash workers' compensation premium costs by 57 percent since 1993. In fact, the newspapers' total reported injuries have actually gone up, while the seriousness and cost of all injuries has declined. Because of this success, Guy Gannett received this year's Best Practices Award for On Site. Don Hensel, one of the judges and the environmental services manager for NAA, says Safe & Sound "wasn't just a gimmick. It was a complete safety program."
Hensel says he was impressed by the program's emphasis on reporting injuries earlier, when treatment is most effective. "If an employee has a cumulative-trauma disorder, early detection may prevent a serious injury requiring corrective surgery," Hensel says.
Safe & Sound's development was "encouraged" by the Maine office of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Officials came with an ultimatum in hand: Guy Gannett, as one of the 200 companies in the state responsible for the greatest number of reported lost-time injuries, could create a plan to correct deficiencies or else face a wall-to-wall inspection, with penalties.
"They put together a really effective program," says Bill Freeman, area director for OSHA in Maine.
Vitas Normantas, corporate health and safety director for Guy Gannett, says Safe & Sound focuses on eliminating claims of the most significant dollar value. "The first priority is to address any injuries that are creating a significant impact from a human or financial standpoint," he says.
Through a detailed computer analysis using a software package called CompWatch, the company discovered that 80 percent of expenses were for soft-tissue injuries, mostly in the upper body. The injuries included those involving repetitive motion, as well as sprains and strains.
The solutions varied from the installation of adjustable workstations for inserting machines (designed by one of the company's machine technicians), to a switch to lighter weight, hollow-core shafts. The company switched to hollow shafts despite the fact that they are more expensive than solid steel shafts.
"In the past, the top managers may not have supported it because there was a cost in the change," Normantas says. "Now, it's a no-brainer, because we could show the cost of the injuries."
All of the authors are regular contributors to TechNews.