Safety Vilolation Work Comp Injury
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[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-13-08 AT 04:04PM (CST)[/font][br][br]I have an employee who has been a little accident prone at work. Within the first few months of his employment he tripped on a pallet ( in the aisle) resulting in a shoulder injury. (2.5 years later we are finally coming to a closure in this file.) 6 months ago employee was injured again on a piece of equipment that he had minimal training on. He did not disconnet the powersource - which resulted in the injury happening. Well... here is the question - it's time for reviews, his supervisor has put in for a nice raise for him (because he is a good worker) but upper management is hesitiate to approve raise because of his accidient history. The gray area really comes into play regarding the 2nd accident - employee had minimal training, most of it was "watch what I do and learn". ( At this time we did not have in place a written training program). What is my response to upper management?? I am concerned that denial of raise would be looked at as retaliation. Yet there was a safety violation on the 2nd incident. I'd apprecaite some HR insight. Thanks!
Comments
If the employee was working unsafely or not following the company procedures that would reduce his evaluation as far as safety goes and possibly not warrant the increase the supervisor is requesting. If the company was responsible (not to sure in this case) and they are refusing to give a raise because of the injury I would consider that retaliation. But hard to say without all the details.
JMO,
Lisa
First, if your company provided and can document that adequate training was offered, you have one thing. However, if your training is lacking in anyway, the incidents may really be the 'fault' of the company, not the employee though the worker is the one who was caught up in the incident and injured.
Specifically, the pallet issue:
Are you referring to a housekeeping issue, and had your workers (including this one) been well training (with documenation of training) that it is their responsibility to ensure that pallets are moved out of walkways? Or, do you have a situation of good housekeeping and well marked passageways, a pallet stored where it should have been, and your worker breaching a procedure by being in a place where he was not supposed to be? The answer to those questions will point you to the likely culprit in the pallet incident.
The machine issue: Again, can you document that the worker had adequate training on how to use the machine, and had the worker been cleared to use the machine. If so, I think your company should generally suck up and admit that you may have a failure in your process and tweak the process. Realistically, this worker could have been any one of your workers if that is the situation. On the other hand, do you have a case whereby your worker was partially training, had not been cleared to operate the machine, and operated it anyway? If that is true, you very likely have a policy or procedure issue and a worker who breached the procedure. A key question is whether the worker's supervisor directed the worker to use the machine. Again, your answer will point you to the likely culprit, and move you quickly along the way to determining an appropriate course of action. Also, again, if you find an opportunity to tweak your processes by ensuring that training is adequate BEFORE a worker is cleared or directed to operate a piece of equipment, the incident again could have involved any of your employees working in the same circumstances.
With the info above, it is up to you and your mgmt staff to decide whether the worker really has a weakness in the area of adhering to safey policy, or whether your company may be inadvertently allowing hazardous work circumstances.
best wishes.