International Paper: Wrangling workers’ comp claims in a notoriously dangerous industry

The global manufacturer is on a mission to make its workplace safer than ever.

Editor’s Note: The three winners of National Underwriter’s Excellence in Workers’ Compensation Risk Management Award share key traits that make them champions: company-wide, employee-centric safety programs that yield savings in medical costs and drive down the number of incidents; collaborative personal relationships with the organization’s TPA and medical providers; thoughtfully executed return-to-work programs that get injured workers back in action as soon as possible; and most of all, sincere devotion to the well-being of their employees.

They also have some terrific stories to tell, and there are many valuable insights to be gleaned from their award-winning best practices.

This year’s winners are the Dallas Independent School District, Cosentino’s Food Stores and International Paper, all of which will be celebrated during the Workers’ Compensation Institute’s annual Educational Conference (WCEC), set for Aug. 19-22 at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Florida. The award statuettes will be bestowed during the conference’s general session, which begins at 9 a.m. on Aug. 20.

The 2018 award is co-sponsored by Sedgwick and Safety National. Those attending WCI’s conference can meet our winners and have the chance to hear all about the finer points of their programs on Aug. 21 during “Winning Strategies for Workers’ Compensation Risk Management,” a panel discussion moderated by NU Editor-in-Chief Shawn Moynihan from 9:45 to 11 a.m. in Grand Ballroom 8A, as part of the National Trends in Workers’ Compensation track.

What follows is the third and final installment of our 2018 winner profiles.

This is one of the 17 original founding mills of International Paper, circa 1908. (Free use image)

If anyone can tell you about the dangers of working in a paper mill, it’s Bill Wainscott, manager of occupational care and recovery at International Paper.

“Our facilities operate 24/7, and there’s moving machinery, chemicals, high temperatures, you name it,” says Wainscott, a 14-year veteran of the company. It would be one thing if those were the only major risks to mitigate, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg for this Memphis-based company that boasts more than 52,000 employees in 24 countries.

For starters, the mills’ locations pose a particular challenge: “Our paper mills are located in rural areas, which can create problems when it comes to making sure injured workers receive immediate medical attention and the highly specialized care they often need,” says Wainscott.

International Paper is typically a top employer in the communities in which it operates. While employee turnover is low, its workforce is aging. “Our average employee has 22 years’ tenure — and it’s not unusual to meet people who’ve been on the job 30, 40, or 50 years,” Wainscott notes. “While an older employee may not get injured as often as a newer employee, an aging employee’s recovery tends to be slower.”

As one of the world’s leading producers of paper, fiber-based packaging, and pulp, International Paper has always paid close attention to workplace safety. The company follows industry best practices and even has its own nurses and EMTs on site so that an injured worker never has to wait to be treated, at least at a primary level. Still, Wainscott and his team know there’s always room for improvement — and nearly a decade ago, they set the most ambitious safety goal in the company’s 120-year history.

Related: Keeping aging workers safe on the job

“You need to [foster] a mentality of helping people, not get caught up in cost control,” says Bill Wainscott, manager of Occupational Care & Recovery for International Paper. (National Underwriter Property & Casualty)

A higher standard

In 2010, Wainscott and his team performed a thorough data analysis of what was causing fatalities and life-impacting injuries like brain damage, amputations, and third-degree burns. That investigation revealed five areas of concern: motorized equipment, machine safeguarding, driver safety, falls and harmful substances/environments.

It was sobering to discover that the company had never had a year in which someone did not lose his or her life on the job. In fact, International Paper was averaging seven employee fatalities per year.

Related: Understand the unique risks that come with employing older workers

That realization led Wainscott and his team to propose a seemingly impossible goal: to eliminate all worker fatalities and life-impacting injuries at International Paper. (The team later expanded that goal to include any contractors, as well.) This ambitious initiative inspired the program name LIFE, which stands for Life-changing Injury and Fatality Elimination.

With a proper name in place and knowledge of where to focus their energies, the team got to work examining and revamping procedures.

“We knew the safety programs already put in place were great, but people were still getting hurt,” Wainscott explains. “So we took a careful look at how these programs looked in the field. Maybe we just needed to add one more safeguard, stop a certain practice, or do a better job educating employees.”

Another major component of LIFE involved empowering International Paper’s employees through training and messaging to take ownership of their and others’ safety. Today, it’s not uncommon for employees to issue reminders about the importance of donning safety glasses or about following a critical safety procedure.

“It’s really a cultural shift we’re talking about,” says Wainscott, who also invested substantial time in getting buy-in from senior management. “Everyone across the entire company is now embracing the importance of safety first.”

Related: 3 ways for insurance agents to use data analytics to drive growth

Employee advocacy

Wainscott and his team decided to take things a step further in 2015 by taking a hard look at how the organization was caring for workers who did become seriously ill or injured. “There was a misalignment between the family-like feel we foster on the job and employees’ experiences when they’re injured,” he says. “We found that injured employees felt they were kind of out there on their own.”

An “employee advocacy” approach was instituted that puts the needs of injured employees above all else at every step of the recovery process. Today, that means each injured employee is assigned an advocate who reaches out to express immediate concern, explains the claims process, and answers any questions.

From there, the employee is directed to a separate care and recovery specialist — a position formerly known as a claims examiner. “I’m a firm believer in the importance of using the right words to get a message across,” says Wainscott.

The company offers a web portal where injured workers can view family and medical leave (FMLA) information and all the activity related to their claim; upload work restriction information; find contact details for all stakeholders in the employee’s recovery; and more. Says Wainscott, “We can’t be all about our workers only from 8 to 5.”

Recognizing the importance that mental health plays in the recovery process, Wainscott and his team put behavioral health specialists in place. “Many employees have anxiety about coming back to work, and the specialists help them overcome that and any other mental health issues that arise,” he adds.

Wainscott knows firsthand how effective the human touch can be. He’s personally visited a worker who suffered a partial hand amputation to offer words of encouragement. (That man has since returned to work.) In another case, he learned that a broken water pump was preventing an injured worker from returning home from the hospital: Wainscott arranged for a plumber to fix the pump so the man could recover at home.

“You need to [foster] a mentality of helping people, not get caught up in cost control,” Wainscott says.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, this focus on employees over dollars and cents has actually led to substantial cost savings for International Paper. Over the past several years, the company has reduced its medical spend by 27%, its indemnity spend by 24%, its lost time (indemnity) claims in litigation by 30%, and its pending claims older than two years by 36%.

In 2016, International Paper also marked its first year with no worker or contractor fatalities. A year later, the company repeated that achievement.

Related: 10 more issues impacting workers’ compensation in 2018

Next steps

Today, the team continues to set new leading, rather than lagging, indicators. “We’d used to measure this year’s accidents against last year’s accidents, which is always looking to the past,” says Wainscott. “Now, we’re looking ahead to see if we’re getting better by measuring the number of employees who received hazard recognition training or how many safe work orders were completed.”

Maintaining that forward momentum, he adds, will be a continued learning process: “We have to keep doing what’s right, learning from experience, and focusing on care and recovery instead of just compliance and processes.”

See also:

Improving workers’ comp outcomes by focusing on employees

How a Dallas school district slashed workers’ comp costs