AmQuip knows the secret to a successful workers' compensationprogram: zero injuries. A tall order, to be sure—especially whenyour company rents out and operates nearly 700 cranes in 47 statesto refineries, power plants, and industrial and buildingconstruction sites.

Eliminating injuries, however, is far from impossible, accordingto Jeffrey C. Hammons, vice president of risk management for thePhiladelphia-based crane rental provider. The right training andparticipation among employees, the company and its carriers greatlypays off—and a shared passion for the company and its valuesdoesn't hurt, either.

“We're one of the three largest employers of union [crane]operators in the country,” Hammons says, and while he's quick topoint out that AmQuip's partnerships with a lengthy list of localunions attract many eager candidates to work for the company, heacknowledges that when you source 300 to 500 seasonal employees,they come with varied levels of training and professionaldevelopment. And therein lies Hammons' No. 1 challenge to hisworkers' compensation program.

“We can hire one person from ABC Company and he or she has a setway of doing things that they have learned from their oldcompanies,” says Hammons. “We have to recognize his or her bestpractices and more importantly, identify threats to our safetyculture and remove them to start a successful foundation.”

The first item in an AmQuip worker's tool box is a S.T.A.R.T.training course (Supervisor Training in Accident ReductionTechniques), in which employees learn the ethical, financial andlegal implications of exercising poor safety measures—and,conversely, the expectations, personal accountability and peercoaching that characterize an effective safety culture.

All employees attend this course, which lasts four hours forexecutives and eight hours for all other employees—which can provechallenging when an operator has a four-hour job scheduled for thatday. The operator receives supplemental instruction from a36-minute safety video, which Hammons calls “the most important 36minutes of their AmQuip career.”

Workers must also attend a course in the Construction IndustryInstitute's “Making Zero Accidents a Reality” program, whichidentifies nine areas that contribute to improved safetyperformance. Typical injuries in the crane-operating industryinclude those to the joints, knees, back and fingers. But becauseworking with heavy equipment carries with it a serious set ofphysical risks, it's paramount that all workers understand veryclearly what's at stake. Lives could be lost or employees seriouslyinjured.

“We teach and test every employee on why safety and themanagement of safe production is important for us,” Hammons says.“We believe in zero incidents. We realize that may sound arrogant,but if you don't set challenging goals toward the elimination ofloss and more important the protection of people, what are youworking to achieve in the first place?”

The results have been a credit to all involved. Excluding oneserious injury that occurred four years ago, AmQuip has averaged$46,000 a year in workers' compensation costs since 2009. Itsworkers' compensation budgets are reduced by 15% each year that thecompany comes in below its previous budget, which requiresemployees to perform better and incur fewer costs. “At the end ofthe day, those are people behind those statistics,” saysHammons.

Despite any company's most comprehensive effort, no organizationcan account for every individual. Accidents still happen, and inthe business of operating cranes, they come with a price.

“I have been doing this for 23 years, and the most seriousinjury I have been associated with happened in 2010,” he continues.“An oversight in hazard recognition on a simple routine task, andan unfamiliarity with new equipment technology led to an injury wecan never forget. As good as we feel we are, as professional as weare, that's a huge eye-opener—and something that can never happenagain.”

Return-to-Work Efforts

Injured employees aren't exempt from work. In some cases,Hammons ensures an eight-hour day by delivering training modulesand programs to employees' homes. The programs include hazardrecognition training, OSHA instruction, service module instructionin schematics, electrical drawings and operator developmenttraining. “I'm going to load them up in training that they wouldnormally receive in the next six months,” says Hammons.

In other cases, he sends shuttles to injuredworkers who are exempt from driving to take them to his office orto AmQuip's training facilities. On job sites, workers withrestrictions can perform tasks such as billing, inventory andapplying for state dispatch permits to aid in the coordination oftransportation.

AmQuip uses the services of panel physicians even if notrequired by state law. To better understand the physical risksinvolved in crane operations, panel physicians visit each companyfacility. The doctors don't just observe tasks like dynamic loadtesting, for example—they also are brought into the cranes to hoistor swing a load. “We interview, select and train our panelphysicians about our industry and its hazards,” Hammons says.

Panel doctors confer with AmQuip's medical director to discusspossible injuries and establish treatment protocols. “If we aredoing our job right,” Hammons says, “these panel doctors aren'tgoing to see a lot of our employees for injuries. In return forhelping us manage injuries, we send our employees to them forphysicals, drug testing and pulmonary function tests.”

Loss expense is charged back to the territory manager's profitand loss statement for accountability. “You can't improve what youdon't measure,” says Hammons. “We have threshold limit values andstrategic initiatives that are included in supervisor annualperformance evaluations. And if you are marginally close towardachieving your financial targets—but your risk management targetsare not—you stand the chance that both targets will be missed andaccountability features exercised. That motivates managers becausethey are reviewed on factors from across the board.”

Organization and Carrier Involvement

Hammons sends out monthly and quarterly safety recap reportsthat detail leading and lagging indicators, workers' compensationcosts and frequency trending, which are given to the CEO all theway down to front-line managers for their aid in management of lossin their territory.

The company uses accrued money savings to reward employees withAmQuip apparel, equipment such as cranes, trucks or job-specifictools, and luncheons and dinners that specifically recognize riskmanagement successes. “We want to recognize their achievement andbroadcast our brand,” says Hammons.

Carrier participation is a key driver in AmQuip's success inworkers' compensation. Hammons spearheads a monthly open claimscall with its carriers and discusses claim status updates,suspected fraudulent claims and claims requiring additionaltreatment protocols. “We recently talked about loss-controlactivities with one of our carrier's senior management,” herecalls. “They want to keep auditing my facility, but that won'tcut it. If they want to give me 50 hours of loss control serviceswith our account, I will take it. However, I will probably expend100 hours. I want them to pull trends, build training andobservation programs that solely focus on what we aren't doingwell. I demand that carrier loss control representatives be anextension of our safety department.”

Hammons delivers to its carriers very specific instructions thatdetail the company's approach to claim administration, handling,settlements and reserves. “We steal, borrow and beg to use allbudgets associated with loss-control from our carrier as anextension of our risk management,” he explains. “To a carrier, I'mthe biggest pain in their ass.” Not because of their inability towork together, he stresses, but because AmQuip has built a specificculture for management around safety and workers' compensation.

Money acquired from carriers has provided for loss controlbudgets and been used toward defensive driver training forprofessional truck drivers, ride-along programs, and a cultureperception survey administered to management and labor. Done intandem with the carrier, supervisors and employees at the laborlevel were asked the same 40 questions about the foundations of thetraining program, and their responses were analyzed against eachother. The survey is repeated every three years with updatedquestions. “That is one of the best tools ever developed,” Hammonssays. “We had great insight into what our employees and managementteam thought and realized communication and the task transferprocess is where we fell short.

“Workers' comp is not a thing that blows your skirt up,” addsHammons. “So you have to be creative and try some things out of thebox, and really like what you do.”