Zero Accident Culture
Embracing Your ‘Inner City Dog’
The three Ps of ZAC: Predict – Prevent – Prosper
John Wayhart
Growing up in the city, I was always amazed when I would see a city dog stroll by. You know the ones that didn’t have a permanent home and were often a source of amusement for neighborhood kids playing in the street. For some reason, those dogs never got hit by the bus, always sniffed around and located some source of food in the alley, and had that dog catcher radar. They were what you call survivors – taking nothing for granted, reliable and consistently learning from their surroundings. Fast forward 20 years later and I find myself in the insurance and risk management world surrounded with the very same city dog concept in the workplace.
The workplace city dog has many similarities, but is somewhat different. The city dog in the workplace is an employee who is continually present, but doesn’t make many waves. He or she does their job and doesn’t complain, and they always find ways to provide for the organization. Like the city dogs that consistently avoid the cars, trucks and dogcatchers, these employees are prepared and never injured on the job. Is it luck or the 3 P’s of a Zero Accident Culture (ZAC) – predict, prevent, prosper?
Predict
To generate a ZAC, you need to put on the psychic hat and predict where future incidents may occur. In other words, predict where the dogcatchers or heavy traffic might be within your organization or industry. If the city dog steps into a high traffic area and is surrounded by cars moving 45 mph and screeching to a halt, you can surely bet the dog will never go down that route again. That experience will help determine future actions and predict when or how an incident can occur. Another way to appropriately predict what can and should not happen incident-wise within the worksite is to seek out the city dog employees within your firm—the ones who are consistently prepared, reliable and knowledgeable of their surroundings.
Here are some of the qualities of a city dog:
Never had a work-related injury or a “lost time day”
Resourceful, quiet and does not bring a lot of attention to themselves
Experienced, dependable and never rushed
Always on the job and prepared for work
Often overlooked when it comes time to celebrate success
Do you know who the “city dogs” are within your waste and recycling company?
Prevent
Just like the prediction phase, one of the tenets of creating and building a ZAC is the ability to learn from loss and take the necessary steps and procedures to prevent a similar situation in the future. If performed well, an incident investigation, injury review process, supervisor accident investigation or whatever your company may refer to it as, is an essential component of this notion. Understanding exactly what may have happened or the “root cause” of someone being injured at work or in your industry and then communicating the lessons learned to all employees to prevent reoccurrence is done flawlessly at waste companies that demand excellence.
Studies continue to show that “accident” investigations that are relentless in determining the root cause of loss are able to achieve tremendous success in the following areas:
Reduction in the frequency of loss
Increase in operational effectiveness
Reduction of workers’ compensation costs
Reduction in malingering or fraudulent claims
Employer of choice
If your company is not doing an injury review process or simply going through the motions, I suggest you look into this high ROI technique that will immediately begin to show results throughout your operations (see Five Critical Steps of an Injury Review Process sidebar).
Prosper
Consider highlighting, interviewing and recognizing your pack of city dogs and role modeling their behavior and best practices to the rest of employees. City dogs are often overlooked as they are consistent and never showboat, but they are truly the backbone of a company’s success.
Once, I had the pleasure of interviewing someone who I thought to be a city dog in the waste and recycling industry. I asked him what the company could be doing better in regards to safety. He noted that the company should be taking much more time in the hiring process to evaluate who would be the most qualified and beneficial employees for the business and then take the due diligence in training them right the first time. Untrained people get injured, hurt the product and damage the company. When asked if anyone has ever talked to him about the operations and safety expectations of the company, he looked at me and said, “I always wondered when someone was going to start asking questions or gaining feedback of those who work in the field.”
Allow your organization to prosper by predicting and preventing incidents and furthermore identifying the city dogs at your waste and recycling facility. The effort and rewards are priceless.
John Wayhart is a Senior Vice President at Assurance (Schaumburg, IL). With more than 29 years in the insurance and risk management industry, his expertise lies in providing solutions for a wide range of businesses including the waste and recycling industry. In the 1989, John trademarked the Zero Accident Culture® and continues to teach, coach and mentor this process to help drive down the cost of risk to improve operational effectiveness and financial results. This successful approach to insurance and risk advocacy is indeed a market differentiator. John can be reached at (847) 463-7161 or [email protected].
Sidebar
Five Critical Steps of an Injury Review Process (IRP)
REITERATE: Explain the importance of the IRP to all existing and new employees.
REPORT: Timely (day of) recording of all facts related to the work injury.
PURSUIT OF ROOT CA– USE: Understand the incident’s root causation.
DOCUMENT LESSON LEARNED: Use incident for training and teaching.
COMMUNICATE LESSON LEARNED TO ALL: Respect the fact that something bad happened and honor the lesson learned so it does not happen again.