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Back in March, a knee injury ended a remarkable streak of more than four years—and 1.5 million man-hours—of “no lost work time” at Sierra-at-Tahoe. This streak, from Dec. 21, 2004 through Mar. 3, 2009, brought Sierra more than $500,000 in workers’ compensation refunds.

Of course, Sierra employees occasionally get hurt. But for more than four years, no employee was out for an extended time. In California, “no lost work time (NLWT)” means an employee has not missed more than three workdays in a row, excluding days off.

“Our success is due to a safety culture that is embraced by management, supervisors and front line employees,” says risk manager Evan MacClellan.

This success is no accident. Years ago, Sierra risk-manager-in-chief John Rice—who came up through the ranks of risk management—set out to create a culture of safety. It touches every department, every procedure, every employee, all the time, and reflects lessons learned over Rice’s 30 years of experience.


CRAFTING SAFETY CULTURE

Prevention is the key focus. “There’s so much on the front end that you can do in preventive measures,” Rice says.

“Culturally, you have to get to the place where people don’t say, ‘s__t happens.’ They have to understand and believe that accidents can be avoided.” That requires a lot of re-education and training in safe practices.

“First, you as a manager have to believe it’s possible,” says Rice. “Know that losses are under your control, always. If you can plant that idea in every employees’ head, through constant re-enforcement, it works. Once the momentum starts, it becomes cultural. We’re a company that doesn’t get hurt.

“You have to get everyone to believe it. If they don’t, you have to move them on. You mostly have to show them the goal, show them the steps, ask them to help get there. And reward them when they do the right things. You do that, and people continue it.”

How do you establish the idea that safety is something that individuals can control? Develop procedures that make safety priority one. To that end, Sierra has developed detailed procedures to eliminate tasks that were contributing to injuries. For example, back injuries in F&B often came from skiing with food, like large tureens of chili; Sierra eliminated those practices. As with many areas, Sierra instituted prescribed easiest-way routes for lifties to follow.

Rice also reviewed and studied every workers’ comp injury to identify the types of injuries that occurred and to which groups, so as to highlight the patterns that led to injuries.

Sierra also checks the equipment of every employee, to make sure the ski bindings, for example, are functioning properly. That cuts down on injuries—especially knee injuries—due to poor, outdated, or improperly adjusted gear.

“It’s a multi-year process,” says Rice. “It takes years to root out all the problems, develop a training program, and understand the work requirements. You have to pay constant attention to it.”

To build his program, Rice tapped safety resources outside the ski industry. “We went out to other industries, public organizations, manufacturing, tire manufacturers, the American Society of Safety Engineers. Everyone has heavy lifting, grease on floors, people working in the air, running heavy machinery. All the risks in our business exist in other industries, and we can draw good ideas from them on how to manage risks on the front end.” Rice was able to obtain a lot of research, safety manuals, and other information by sharing best practices and bartering for lift tickets.


MANAGING FOR SAFETY

“Risk management should be managed out of HR, it’s people-centric,” Rice says. “The motivational side of it, behavior modification, comes out of training—that’s HR. It has to become an ‘us’ thing, part of the culture.”

Train supervisors to know that accidents can be prevented, and to work toward that goal, he adds. “We have a lot of discussions of past mistakes, even at other jobs, among the managers. Sharing stories adds a human element,” Rice says. In addition, managers get trained on how to run a fun, exciting safety meeting.

“Communication and the recognition that incidents are caused by factors that are within our control are big contributors to the safety culture,” says MacClellan. Because all incidents, no matter how small, are reported in some fashion, supervisors are able to identify an issue and focus on it to eliminate the risk. Similarly, supervisors understand that incidents can be avoided if the factors that lead to the incident are mitigated.

“Sometimes an injury will lead us to make changes, implement a new policy that will benefit all employees,” Rice says. Years ago, a new custodial employee, on her first day, took a lift to the top of the mountain. The employee had not been trained on riding the lift safely; on the way down, she misloaded, fell out of the chair and broke her back. As a result of the seriousness of the injury and the lack of communication between employee and supervisor, Sierra implemented a very specific written policy and training procedure on loading and unloading.

“Getting the job done quickly collides with doing it safely,” Rice says. “Make sure everyone knows it’s best to get the job done safely.”

To ensure these messages take root, managers’ compensation is based, in part, on their departments’ safety records. “They can lose their leadership position if they disregard safety. The responsibility for risk management is tantamount to their position. So I have basically 40 risk managers,” Rice says.

To help make them successful, “the management team—the department heads and execs—holds weekly meetings,” says McClellan. “We talk about everything that happened during the prior week—safety record, discuss all injuries, liability issues, etc.

“Then, every supervisor during the season presents the topics for that week to their department staffs. So everyone knows if an injury happened, where, and how it could be prevented. Safety is discussed in every department, every week, in a specific safety meeting. I pop into two or three each week, and each supervisor does a safety inspection each week.”

Sierra often uses recent incidents to bring the safety message home. “If there has been a recent incident with a ladder in one department, all departments talk about ladder safety, or climbing safety, even if it involves a stepstool,” Rice says. “It could be cut fingers in food and beverage; we then relate that to every department, where the topic becomes, ‘watch out for cuts.’ Plus, we have a library of topics, 5-10 minutes each.” For company-wide meetings, he adds, “We might bring in the person who slipped and fell, or fell off the ladder, to run the meeting.

“On the awareness side, we’re constantly talking about over-exertion. We encourage employees, from a team perspective, to ask for help, to not think they have to do everything themselves. Otherwise, they try to carry too much or overextend themselves, and get hurt.”

As a final step to reduce claims, Sierra does everything possible to weed out fraud. Pre-hiring exams are part of that, as they turn up pre-existing injuries. Drug testing ensures that employees walk through the gate clean. If they get hurt on the job, they have to take a urine test to make sure they still are. “Many people quit on the spot when they know they have to take the pee test,” says Rice. “That by itself deters fraud, especially if they got hurt somewhere else.”

Sierra asks the doctors it works with to make sure an injury truly is work-related; Rice says the doctors can often tell if it’s not. “If we smell a rat, we go after it—no tolerance there,” says Rice. In one extreme case, the area prosecuted an employee for a fake knee injury. The employee had sued for both workers’ comp and liability, and even lined up false witnesses. But Sierra won the suit; the former employee went to jail and had to repay $80,000. Point made.


GETTING BUY-IN

Employees get lots of safety information, and reinforcement on using it. Safety is a core value and one of four parts of the annual daylong fall orientation. “We talk about safety programs and our no lost work time record, and about the types of injuries we’ve had,” MacClellan notes.

“The majority of injuries come from ski school and lift ops. So we work on those in particular. We also give internationals a lot of attention. Some have never seen snow before; they have a lot to get used to. We don’t try to scare them, but give them a realistic view of what can happen to them,” MacClellan says.

Rewards and recognition for employees help establish the safety culture. For example, full-time employees get half-price on health club membership. Seasonal employs get free medical care from an on-site medical clinic. Services include free x-rays and office visits; employees buy their own medicines. “The message is, ‘we don’t want you to get hurt, but if you do, we want you to get treatment,’” Rice says.

Recognition and rewards take many other forms. “For example, when the whole company has a safety meeting, everyone shows up. We give supervisors money so their departments can go bowling, have pizza parties, buy lottery tickets, etc. There are many rewards out there; it’s easy money,” Rice says.

But it’s not guaranteed money. “When a department doesn’t hit the goal, everyone loses on the perks. So there’s some peer pressure,” he notes.

Sierra also regularly celebrates the company’s safety record. If the “no lost work time” record is intact at the end of October, employees might receive free pumpkins, or perhaps there’s an Oktoberfest party. At Christmas, there might be a party “with a few extra presents.” Sierra also posts the number of NLWT days pr0minently in employee areas.

Individuals can also earn rewards. “We use lottery-style tickets, called ‘safety scratcher’ and ‘moments of magic,’” says MacClellan. “Supervisors have these cards, and they pass them out to front-line employees who are doing great work—maybe they removed icicles or mopped up grease. These prizes have value from $5 to $25. They pick a card, which they can use in F&B, retail shop, etc., by loading it onto their employee discount card.” The annual workers’ comp refund more than covers the costs.

As part of its wellness effort, Sierra encourages employees to take time off when they need it. “Sometimes, there are things going on in their lives that affect their performance. We’ll ask them to take a day off and clear their heads. Sometimes, they’ve been partying too hard. We tell them to come back when they are ready for work. We ask our managers to identify those at-risk employees, and we devise a schedule to get them back to work,” MacClellan says. Fellow employees are encouraged to counsel colleagues as well. Adds Rice, “We want them to know it’s okay to take a break, they won’t get in trouble for it.”

Sierra also tries to relieve the stress of the holidays. “We acknowledge when someone’s burned out,” Rice says. “We’ll give them a gift certificate for a massage if they’ve been working especially hard. During the holidays, we hire three chair massage people and pull hardworking employees aside and give them a break.”

And when employees are injured in the course of work? “We’re never gonna try to weasel out of anything. We don’t tell people ‘you’re a bad person if you get hurt.’ We want people to know we’re going to take care of them,” Rice says.


HIRING RIGHT

The hiring process is a key part of developing the safety culture, too. Every job description has its own specific list of mental and/or physical requirements. Prior to hiring anyone, Sierra conducts a complete medical history and exam, to make sure applicants can physically fulfill the job, and to identify pre-existing injuries. The goal is to limit applicants to activities that are suitable.

Pre-hiring testing requires a close working relationship with the local medical community. Sierra talks to the local providers two or three times a year to make sure they understand the physical requirements of the employees’ jobs. The area lets doctors know that the resort wants to keep employees busy with light duty whenever possible, and gives doctors a list of the jobs that are available.

Before instituting these procedures, says Rice, “The ski industry was paying for every sports injury anyone had ever had. People would aggravate old injuries. We also found some people were shopping around at a variety of areas.”


RETURN TO WORK PROGRAM

Sierra’s aggressive Return To Work program is the final component in the culture of safety. The program benefits both the employee and the resort. The employee is able to focus on healing while performing light duty tasks, and the resort uses its staff more efficiently.

Does Sierra have enough light-duty jobs to keep injured employees busy? “It can be difficult, especially early or late in the season, when we’re cutting hours for some people,” MacClellan admits. “But we’ll find something for them. So long as the doctor is willing to release the employee to light duty, we keep them working. That way, we attend to everyone’s needs. The employee stays engaged with us throughout the healing process and doesn’t have to worry about lost income. The resort benefits by keeping employees connected to the resort and continuing to get work done.”

“Each department has light duty work; we start there,” Rice says. “If they get tired of that, we might use them in other departments, and point out that it gives them broader skills. Plus, light duty encourages people to get back to work in their real job—they hate the light duty work after awhile.”

To change the mindset of both managers and employees and make safety part of the culture, you have to build in all these steps, Rice says. “It takes a lot of pushing,” he notes. “It’s like going up the down escalator—you have to keep going faster than the stairs.”