Goal: It is our goal to help you improve your safety performance, OSHA DART rates, experience modifier and ultimate desirability as an insurance risk.

Custom Plan: There is no single plan, process, or program that will work in every case since every organization has a unique culture and management structure.

How it works: We provide the knowledge, tools, and expertise needed to effectively manage and control your risks based on your unique culture, management structure, timeline and budget.

Although the specific tasks completed in each phase are unique to every organization, the basic Course Correction℠ process includes three phases intended to give you short and long term guidance.

The Course Correction℠ process is not intended to be short term fix. Instead the process is a series of actions and systems intended to ensure you reduce your operational risks and losses for the long term. If followed, you will achieve better than industry performance which will translate into reduced total cost of risk and improved competitiveness.

Here is an example of a typical multiyear year plan, the first year being the most important to get your organization moving forward.

The first part of your Course Correction℠ is to get a historical picture of your organization by reviewing and analyzing your past losses, regulatory citations, incident rates, and insurance carrier/loss control recommendations.

Our goal is to identify opportunities for improvement of operations to address current losses and high potential risks.

There is a good chance that without effective remedial action you will experience similar losses in the future. As Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Using our analysis from the previous step, we begin the next step which includes:

o Facility or site walk through focusing on key incidents identified in our historical analysis

o Informal interviews with staff and management

o Review written policies, training records, compliance programs, physical hazard control methods, general safety management process, etc…

o Completion of gap analysis checklist and report

The goal here is to provide a non-bias, non-governmental assessment of your physical and managerial operations to identify real and perceived needs and gaps.

Safety Links offers a customized approach to organizational safety surveys to help you find the specific strengths and weaknesses of your safety management efforts. These surveys collect feedback directly from your employees and managers and provide you with objective data about the quality and effectiveness of your safety management efforts. These surveys can be repeated periodically to track improvements of perception made over time.

We will work with you to develop and present a survey to your staff as either an online survey or as a paper based survey. The questions will be customized as a series of statements which the participant rates in degrees according to whether they strongly agree, strongly disagree or are neutral.

Afterwards the results will be analyzed and a detailed report will be compiled which includes charts and narrative explanations. Comparison of significant differences by level of employment, department, location, or other variables can be analyzed if needed.

After clearly identifying your needs we will tailor your Course Correction℠ action plan and timeline. This plan will include a list of needed programs, documents, tools, and processes.

More importantly, the plan will include a description of how the implementation will actually be measured including a description of your safety scorecard, annual schedule of safety activities and corrective action list.

These elements will serve as “checks and balances” to measure your process improvements and overall organizational performance.

It is this action plan that will be communicated to the insurers in your IOA Risk score package to paint a very clear picture of your improved level of risk.

The first part of your Course Correction℠ is to get a historical picture of your organization by reviewing and analyzing your past losses, regulatory citations, incident rates, and insurance carrier/loss control recommendations.

Our goal is to identify opportunities for improvement of operations to address current losses and high potential risks.

There is a good chance that without effective remedial action you will experience similar losses in the future. As Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

To ensure the successful implementation of the safety management system we typically like to involve as many people as possible in the roll out. It is especially important to provide front line leadership with an orientation explaining their responsibilities under the new system.

Safety Links specializes in custom e-learning development. As part of this service we will develop a site specific employee orientation program in English and/or Spanish that will be housed on the IOA Learning Management System (LMS), or on your own internal network.

The orientation will be based upon your policies and operations and will include specific examples of your people and processes. Our content rich training includes pictures, tables, charts, narration, animation, tests, interactive activities and even custom video.

When your orientation is complete, you will have a consistent and cost effective orientation process which will assist you in meeting regulatory and human resource requirements, while simultaneously providing your staff with the information they need to start work safely.

If you have commercial vehicles consider our “How am I driving?” service. This service includes uniquely numbered bumper stickers and a toll free call messaging system to take motorist observation reports 24 hours a day. After we receive a call our Vehicle Observation Report and a copy of the recorded call is transmitted to you by email.

It has been proven that fleet safety monitoring can:

• Influence drivers' behavior on the roadways
• Provide feedback as to how your drivers conduct themselves on the road
• Provide valuable information on trends and on the effectiveness of vehicle operator's safety practices
• Openly express your concern to the public
• Reduce your insurance costs by reducing collisions
• Help identify areas of strength and areas needing improvement
• Help create/improve a positive image for your company to the public

The Behavior-Based Safety (BBS) process can make a tremendous impact on how safety is valued and perceived within your work environment. BBS focuses on what people do, analyzes why they do it, and then applies a research-supported intervention strategy to improve what people do.

Simply put BBS focuses on the immediate safe (or unsafe) behavior and the provision of positive reinforcement to encourage safe work behavior (and reduce at-risk behaviors).

If your culture is ready for this step Safety Links will help implement a BBS system that consists of:

• Common goals – Both employee and managerial involvement in the process
• Definition of what is expected – Specifications of target behaviors derived from safety assessments
• Observational data collection
• Decisions about how best to proceed based on those data
• Feedback to associates being observed
• Continuous review and improvement

What are the benefits of BBS?

• Improved hazard recognition
• Declined incident rates
• Improved employee dialog about safety
• Increased employee involvement in the safety management system
• Management no longer the "safety cop”

In the end, by implementing behavioral based safety methods, employees are prompted to work together as a team to help monitor and lessen occurrences. Encouraging employees to be proactive in both how they work and watching the habits of coworkers creates a sense of continuity and loyalty. When this happens your organization will experience a true safety culture!

How effective is behavioral safety?

Research shows that behavioral safety processes typically result in improvements of approximately 30%. Our typical results are consistent with the published studies with some customers achieving 60%-80% reduction in incidents over several years.

This option is specially designed to provide you with a predictable low cost training solution for your work force. For a flat rate daily fee you can mix and match from our extensive course catalog and choose only the topics that you need covered.

Partial Course Listings
You can mix and match from any the following topics or we can custom create a course for you:

Our health hazard assessment services (technically known as Industrial Hygiene) may be needed if your workforce is exposed to health hazards including noise, excessive heat, airborne contaminants, radiation, and so on. Our health hazard assessment process is as follows:

1. Planning phone call

•  You’ll receive a phone call from our industrial hygienist to help determine the potential areas of concern

2. Review of Safety Data Sheets

• If the concern is chemical in nature we will review any applicable data sheets to identify the specific constituents that may require evaluation

3. Formal proposal including costs for specialized equipment and laboratory fees

4. Acceptance of proposal and scheduling

5. Onsite work- Depending upon your specific health needs we will:

•  Walk through of work area to review current control measures
• Conduct noise mapping and dosimetry (if necessary)
• Conduct air quality testing (if necessary)
• Conduct heat stress assessment (if necessary)
• Conduct basic ergonomic assessment (if necessary)

6. Written Report

• After the health hazards have been identified and assessed, Safety Links will provide you with a detailed written report of our findings including recommendations to ensure compliance and employee protection

In many cases safety responsibilities frequently fall to individuals that do not have the knowledge or expertise needed to effectively manage the safety duties. This can cause undue risk and liability for your organization, and often results in mismanaged safety initiatives!

Safety Links will work with you to assist your internal staff implement your safety management system. The regular service visits are based on your needs and can include daily, weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, and annual visits.

This service is ideal if you:

1. Are not large enough to have an in-house safety professional
2. Have had to make cuts to your safety staff
3. Have multiple locations that require periodic service
4. Have in-house safety staff that needs assistance with specialized tasks and projects
5. Want to have a third party involved to hold you and your staff accountable for continuous improvements

We will base your service on the annual schedule of activities developed with your safety management system. Not only does this schedule act as a road map for our services but it also functions as a road map for the tasks that you and your staff will complete in house. Using this process we will ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

In addition to your regularly scheduled visits you will have access to our “Safety Help Line” to get quick and accurate answers to your safety questions whenever you need.

Saving you money on your insurance is our ultimate goal. One of the best ways to do this is to manage your risks by implementing proactive safety measures. As part of the annual insurance audit renewal process we will conduct an extensive review of the existing action plan and identify opportunities to improve your loss reduction outcomes.

Another goal is to evaluate your safety management system by looking for recurring or other high potential risks, investigating any major incidents that occurred in the last year and developing an action plan to address the identified issues.

A summary report will be provided to the insurer which explains the safety activities completed, the results achieved, and the action plan to address any gaps for the following year. This will provide the underwriter with the most accurate understanding of your level of risk and your management’s commitment to continuous safety improvement.

Our incident investigation service is one that hopefully will never have to help you with. Unfortunately, when the worst happens, an incomplete, inaccurate or biased investigation can aggravate the problem and potentially increase your liability.

More importantly inexperienced and influenced investigators often overlook the true cause of incidents and therefore miss the opportunity to prevent future incidents.

For many high potential incidents you cannot afford to have anything but an impartial investigator determining the incident causation. To prevent recurrences of similar incidents the investigator must be able to find all possible answers to the question: Why did the incident happen?

Our impartial investigators do not have any vested interest in the outcomes of the investigation and can therefore objectively find the root causes. Our professional investigators are trained to objectively investigate any incident you may encounter. From a near miss to a fatality!

After a regulatory inspection is completed or when a citation is received we will assist you in developing an appropriate plan of action to address the citation(s) and to meet the response requirements.