Worker safety is about more than hard hats
Winners of the 2024 Workers’ Comp Risk Management Award for Excellence all share an enviable workplace culture.
My 15-year-old recently landed her first “real job.”
Despite her parents’ best effort to persuade her to spend free time learning a new sport, getting involved in a fresh activity or just being a kid, the girl was intent on earning her own money. And who can argue with that/?
My daughter navigated a couple of job prospects that I deemed inappropriate for such a young worker before landing the perfect gig as a cashier at an antiques store near home. It tickled me to think that her shifts would be spent around nostalgic ephemera, and I felt that much better about the job knowing that so many of the store’s clientele and staff are mild-mannered seniors.
In short, the store felt like a safe place where my kid could get a taste of the responsibilities and rewards of work-life.
Of course, the best jobs happen in places where safety protocols are simply the bedrock for building a workplace culture rooted in mutual respect, quality and consistency.
Those qualities are abundant when looking at the three winners of the 2024 Workers’ Comp Risk Management Award for Excellence.
Consider the Dairy Farmers of America workers’ comp program, which touches more than 10,000 farmers at nearly 5,500 farms nationwide along with about 19,000 employees working at dozens of different manufacturing facilities.
And at restaurants run by The Cheesecake Factory, employees thrive thanks to a joyful, team-driven environment.
Finally, Albertsons is taking workers’ comp excellence one step further by leveraging AI and process automation so that claims staff can spend less time on administrative duties and more time supporting injured workers.
These companies illustrate best practices in keeping workers safe and engaged, which in turn results in stronger overall business performance.
Sprouting professionalism
Talking to friends and family about my teen’s first job took me back to my own early days in the workforce, biding my time through an array of service-industry positions until I finished school. There was the big-box craft store where intense overhead lighting felt like it was searing my brain; the video store where I was fired after six months for being snotty to an agitated customer; the late-night diner where I was fired after my first shift for breaking a coffee pot; and the pizza place where I quit after a month because an unstable coworker often hurled racist epithets at me without recourse.
Ultimately, my best early jobs were located at a quiet bookstore (remember those?!) where I spent my last year of high school before heading off to college, and then a bustling soap shop near campus where I worked for years as a college student and forged friendships that have lasted a lifetime.
All of those jobs imparted lessons that helped shape the person and the professional that I have become. They serve as a reminder of how work is about more than earning money. Our jobs set the stage for how the rest of our lives unfold, which makes workers’ comp and benefits programs a script for the grand production that is an employee’s life.
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