As recently reported in its ESG Impact 2023 Report, Servicon achieved an impressive .83 experience modification rate (EMR) score. EMR is the numerical score insurance companies use to determine a company’s risk level. A company with an EMR lower than 1.0 is viewed as a lower risk based on its better-than-average safety record. An EMR score of .83 is well below the industry average. Servicon attributes its impressive rating to the company’s culture of safety.
At Servicon, employee safety is our No. 1 priority. We believe safety must be managed at the site level since this is where accidents are most likely to occur. For this reason, Servicon has implemented a comprehensive program that encompasses key aspects of site safety, including those below.
Certified Safety
All supervisory employees receive an in-person supervisor safety course that includes vital components, such as:
- How to create a safety culture
- How to train others on safety
- Safe equipment use
- Incident response procedures
- Overviews of safety programs.
Assessing Safety
Staying on top of site safety requires constantly assessing the sites and looking for new or potential hazards. To ensure ongoing safety, all sites receive a risk assessment by a safety professional within the first 30 days of a client contracting with Servicon. The assessment includes a Rolling Action Item List (RAIL) for site leadership to work through and correct. Our safety department continues to track the RAIL to ensure we take steps to mitigate all issues to protect workers and clients.
“We take a proactive approach to safety,” says Servicon Safety Director Carlos Janer. “Supervisors are required to walk the floors. They look at everything, including equipment and inside closets, to identify potential workplace hazards. We then address them in training if they can’t be moved, or we physically show the client where a repair is needed. We want to create safety awareness before an incident, but if there is an incident, we take a lesson-learned approach to derive value from it and learn what to watch for moving forward.”
Safety Toolkits
Servicon has established 24 core safety toolkits for employee training conducted twice monthly. These interactive toolkits blend written content, pictures, and discussion guides to create comprehensive training modules covering the most frequent safety incidents and OSHA compliance topics. Example topics include:
- Workplace emergencies and hazards
- Minimizing sharps injuries in healthcare
- Effective incident reporting
- Incident prevention
- Working safely around client employees
- Emergency preparedness.
An impressive 92% of all Servicon employees completed the bimonthly training toolkits on time.
According to Janer, Servicon continues to add to its safety toolkit library: “We are currently working on initiatives to launch in 2024, which include rolling out several new toolkits customized for our EVS [environmental services] healthcare sector. These toolkits will address some health and
safety issues not typically experienced in other settings, such as mental health and working in isolation rooms. Additional initiatives we will pilot are additional site safety assessments and root cause analysis using technology to take our safety program to the next level and ensure we and our clients remain compliant.” Another toolkit Janer says the company is working on is stair safety.
Safety Metrics
Metrics are essential for knowing where you safely stand and where there may be room for improvement or immediate action is needed. To ensure the company knows where each site stands regarding safety, Servicon has established site-level safety metrics, including tracking training and incident frequency at leading and lagging sites. A site is placed on a Yellow Card performance improvement plan if it does not meet the mandated metrics. The program has 10 distinct protocols, including a revised RAIL, unannounced site visits from human resources, and weekly safety huddles.
Safety is a vital component of Servicon’s ESG efforts. To read more about the company’s safety and risk assessment and other ESG efforts, we invite you to view Servicon’s ESG Impact Report 2023, Thrive – Doing Well by Doing Right.
