TC Transcontinental Packaging fosters synergistic teamwork
Every employee is part of the winning workers’ comp program at TC Transcontinental Packaging. (Part 2 of 3)
A comprehensive program that marries risk management and safety wrapped up a 2022 Workers’ Comp Risk Management Award for TC Transcontinental Packaging.
This international packaging manufacturer is a diverse packaging organization with operations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Guatemala, Ecuador and New Zealand. Over the last few years, the company has grown rapidly, both organically and through acquisition.
“Despite our growth, our experience modifier rate [MOD Rate or EMR] has continued to trend positively year-over-year. Our current rate is 37% better than that of our industry competitors,” Kara deBorde, senior director risk management says of the metric that insurers use to calculate workers’ comp premiums.
She attributes this to the fact that the Risk Management and Safety teams began working closely together in 2019, when a new packaging president, Thomas Morin, came on board. DeBorde and Safety Director Ron Unger became synergistically laser-focused on eliminating risk and keeping workers safe, and they put into place a comprehensive plan to do just that.
Putting heads together
“Under our previous structure, Safety reported to Human Resources and Risk Management reported to Finance. There was some disconnection because of that,” Unger explains. “Kara and I communicated regularly with each other about safety issues, so some of that disconnection was being mitigated.” Still, the arrangement was less than ideal.
In 2019, the two functional areas were blended together seamlessly. Under the new structure, Safety & Environmental reports to deBorde, who in turn reports to Morin. He makes safety his top priority.
One of Unger and deBorde’s first steps was to launch a formal, organization-wide risk-assessment process that required each TC Transcontinental Packaging site to review every production asset and all the tasks associated with them. This resulted in the implementation of a dynamic corrective action program.
Teamwork for the win
objectives,” deBorde explains. The original team consisted of five Safety Sector Advisors; recently a sixth was added. These advisors, assigned to work within specific areas of the company, have a wide range of responsibilities that include communication, collecting and analyzing safety data, eliminating risks, reducing claim frequency, and managing workers’ comp claims, which includes directly communicating with adjusters.
“Each Safety Sector Advisor has a number of plants they are responsible for supporting,” Unger explains. “They monitor their respective plants in terms of leading indicators, conduct training in site safety, and help sites manage injuries.” Each Safety Sector Advisor also serves as a “Champion” subject matter expert.
Engaging employees
“Our main goal is to actively engage our employees in managing safety,” Unger stresses. Safety Sector Advisors also promote employee engagement in maintaining a safe workplace. One way is with Behavioral Observation, through which employees are empowered to observe their teammates performing their tasks and encourage them to use safe practices, such as wearing PPE. This is all done in a very positive way, in the spirit of looking out for one another’s wellbeing.
Employees are also engaged through a near-miss reporting program. “We’ve trained all employees to report any near-miss accidents. There is a formal process for evaluating any hazards identified, and if it’s determined there is potential for someone to be injured, mitigation is implemented,” Unger explains.
“The safety sector advisors are promoting continuous improvement in our key performance indicators, which includes decreased workers’ compensation costs, fewer lost workdays, and experience modifier well below industry averages,” deBorde says. “In addition, our incident rate and lost-time incident rate remain significantly lower than industry averages, with total incident rate reduction of 40% since 2019 and a lost-time incident rate reduction of 70% in the same time period.”
Safety campaigns
The risk management safety team has also implemented ongoing employee-involvement campaigns geared toward specific concerns.
“The leading cause of injury in our industry continues to be hand-related injuries,” deBorde points out. “We selected several ways to address this hazard, most importantly through an employee engagement approach. We launched an employee-driven Hand Safety Campaign where the theme was ‘I work safely because…’”
Employees were asked to share photos and sentiments about why they protect their hands and work safely. The campaign was highly successful, with more than 800 entries submitted by employees throughout the Packaging sector.
Other safety campaigns focus on cutting-tool safety and personal protective equipment.
Return-to-work program
Another highly successful measure Unger and deBorde have implemented, with the help of their safety sector advisors, is an enhanced return-to-work program for employees who have been injured on the job. The goals are for employees to receive proper care and to return to work as soon as safely possible.
“Our employees are educated annually on our Return-to-Work program so that they understand, and embrace, the benefits of active participation,” deBorde says. “We consistently communicate the benefits and options for returning to work before an injury occurs.”
The program includes working closely with health care providers.
“We’ve identified board-certified occupational doctors and clinics that will provide the best quality of care to our employees,” deBorde says. “We promote prompt reporting through our third-party administrators and case managers. We get all the parties engaged early in the claim process.”
“If someone is out of work, our HR managers and safety managers will reach out at least weekly to see how they’re doing, ask if they need any help and if they’re having any issues with their doctors,” Unger says. “We also have a corporate medical director who works closely with physicians who are treating our employees. Sometimes we have him review cases in terms of treatment and communicate with the physician if he feels there is something else that should be done to get the employee well and back to work.”
The effectiveness of this program is evident in the reduction of lost time recordable rates over the last three years and reductions in reserve holdings. “As a result, in 2021, we were able to return a sizeable amount of workers’ compensation reserves to our sites, which went directly to their bottom line,” deBorde reports.
It starts at the top
“Safety is everybody’s responsibility, starting with the CEO, packaging president, and leadership teams,” deBorde points out. Our packaging president begins every meeting with a discussion about safety. “We’re showing our employees that their leadership is engaged. It’s critical to convey that top-down commitment,” she stresses.
“If you build the right structure and have a good, solid management system in place — with commitment and communication from the top down — then you will have engagement on the floor,” Unger says.
“Our structure and engagement provide us great leverage to continue to improve and be best-in-class in safety,” deBorde says. “Our most valuable resource is our employees, so we make health and safety our number-one priority. TC’s vision for safety is ‘Everyone home safe and healthy, every day.’”
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