Three Ways Your Corporate Culture is Increasing Your Out of Work Employees
Company culture is an enormous driver of worker's compensation claims and expenses. According to a 2019 study published by the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, organizations that proactively improve their culture of wellness show reduced employee medical visits, prescription drug use, healthcare costs and health risk factors.
If your organization has begun prioritizing safety initiatives but you’re still not seeing results, here are three ways your corporate culture might be contributing to your out of work employees:
1. You’re Investing in Safety Training but Not Creating a Safety-First Culture
By now, you understand the importance of investing in safety training. But the training on its own is not enough. Employees need to believe the company is doing everything in its power to keep employees safe at every moment; not just ticking the compliance boxes with regular safety trainings.
Imagine you buy something from your favorite furniture brand. Their website and marketing materials declare that they’re “passionate about delivering top-notch customer service.” But when you go to return a recent purchase, you have a very different experience. After speaking to four different customer service reps, you still haven’t been able to return the piece of furniture, a week has gone by and your frustration is mounting.
Which are you going to believe? The statement on their website or your real-life experience? It’s always going to be your real-life experience.
The same is true for building a safety-first culture. Comprehensive safety training is a critical first step. But company leaders need to continuously remind employees that their health and safety is a top priority and help them steer clear of dangerous situations on the job. If a manager discusses the importance of safety during a training session but is cutting corners and putting the team in dangerous situations throughout the day, employees are going to follow the manager’s example and your out-of-work employees will continue to rise.
2. You Have a Workers’ Comp Process in Place—But Haven’t Communicated it to Employees.
It’s important that organizations have a comprehensive plan in place for managing injured employees—from a bad scrape to a catastrophic injury.
Many HR and workers’ compensation teams at mid and large-sized companies have an internal protocol for how to report an injury and designated internal and external resources dedicated to helping navigate the organization and employee through the claims process. But here’s where organizations are falling short: educating employees themselves.
Medical claims processes are complex, often involving upwards of a dozen stakeholders. When employees don’t know what to do once they get injured, deadlines are missed, processes are stopped and started, and critical health and insurance information is often shared incorrectly. All of which increases the employee’s out-of-work time.
Whether you hold regular training sessions or create an engaging learning platform, proactively educating employees about how the workers’ compensation system works, how the organization supports them when they’re injured and what employees can do to get the most optimal care is where you’ll start to see a decreased out of work timeframe.
3. Your Employees Don’t Feel Safe, Appreciated or Valued
As we explored in our recent article on how to manage costs and create a human experience for employees, employees’ values are shifting. One study found that 79% of people who quit their jobs do so because of a “lack of appreciation.” A 2019 study by Businessolver found that 90% of employees are more likely to stay with an organization that empathizes with their needs. In a post-COVID world, this has become even more clear. Employees are leaving companies in droves as part of The Great Resignation, with toxic corporate culture the leading predictor of attrition.
When organizations create a company culture that’s aligned to the values of their employees, retention rates and productivity rise. After nearly 20 years in the industry, we see it all the time—employees who feel organizations have their best interests in mind are more likely to get back to work more quickly, leading to a decrease in out-of-work time. On the flip side, when employees don’t feel like their employer cares about their health and safety, they’re not rushing back to work anytime soon. Would you?
Improving your company’s culture of wellness can feel nebulous, especially since its success isn’t dependent on any one training program or safety initiative. Instead, you’ll start to see decreased out-of-work days and happier, more productive employees when you implement proactive employee-first initiatives alongside regular communications from leaders across the organization.