In the 186 years since the Georgia state legislature establishedCherokee County, just north of Atlanta, the area has grown fromquiet rural lowlands dotted with Cherokee Indian settlements to adensely populated burb in one of the country's largest metropolitancorridors.

The late 20th century, in particular, brought shopping malls,office parks, interstates and a lot more people to Atlanta and itssuburbs.

“Cherokee County has changed a lot,” says Bob Alford, thecounty's human resources manager and the person largely responsiblefor its workplace safety, risk management and workers' compensation programs. “Our county hasgrown tremendously over the last 15 to 20 years.”

With that urban development came the need for many moregovernment services and employees, along with the challenge ofimplementing a 21st century risk management program.

The results are as sweet as a Georgia peach. Among the county'sachievements: Between 2011 and 2016, its workers' comp programannual net incurred losses decreased by more than two-thirds, from$1,034,331 in 2011 to $319,086 last year, according to data fromMasterKey Connects, a risk managementinformation system developed by Key Risk.

Getting under the hood

A graduate of the University of Georgia Risk Management and InsuranceProgram, Alford served three years in the Army on active dutywith the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. He dedicatedmany more years of service to the Georgia National Guard whileachieving the rank of major.

Alford's first private sector job was in Norcross, Ga., withWestern Electric Co., where he did safety training; he then spentmore than a decade overseeing safety operations in a Pabst BrewingCompany bottling plant. After that he worked in an aircraft plantfor Boeing Georgia before rounding out his time in manufacturingwith the Atlas Ruby Corp., which makes roofing products. He retiredin 2007.

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Boredom in retirement, combined with hisbackground in safety and big-picture problem-solving, spurredAlford to join the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners in 2012.He quickly discovered that this suburb of about 240,000 residentsand more than 1,500 full-time and part-time employees in roughly 30different departments had surprisingly little in the way of aformal Risk Management Program.

Alford set out to get better acquainted with the county,including its 434 square miles, and its employees, who handle everymanner of municipal task, from clerking to crime-fighting. Gettingto know the broad workplace safety needs in Cherokee County, herelates, meant going from one department to the next, learning theresponsibilities of each employee, and beginning the brick-by-brick process ofbuilding “a culture of safety.”

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Alford's loss prevention program includes monthly safetytraining topics. (Photo: iStock).

All departments on board

The county's risk management program began in earnest in2013.

“Loss Prevention Programs are vital to any organization, butespecially in the public sector due to the diverse risk exposuresand services that are delivered to the public,” Alford explains.“Our Loss Prevention Program has been accepted by all departments,which contributes to the success of the program in controllinglosses and claim costs to the County.”

Cherokee County's risk management umbrella now includes thefollowing:

• A Safety Committee that meets regularly to review accidents anddetermines the appropriate corrective action.

• A periodic claim loss data review to decipher trends,disseminate loss run reports and set or reset each department'sgoals as needed.

• A reconceived Vehicle Accident Review Committee to survey countyvehicle accidents, assign liability and make recommendations toprevent future crashes. A vehicle accident packet also is availableon the county website.

• A Return to Work program that supports creativeefforts to get employees who have been injured back to work as soonas possible.

• An overhaul of the county's workers' comp claimreporting process with new forms and instructions. Thatpacket also lives online now to serve as a ready reference foremployees and supervisors.

• Safety communications initiatives that includemonthly safety tips and monthly safety training topics, which areemailed to employees and managers and posted on the county websiteto support regular jobsite safety meetings.

Taken together, these initiatives resulted in “very significantprogress in reducing [the County's] experience modificationfactor,” from 2.24 in 2011 to 0.84 in 2016.

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A renewed focus on return-to-work

Alford is especially proud of the county's return-to-workinitiative. “For some reason, there was a mindset with someemployers that if an employee couldn't do all of the job, (he orshe) shouldn't come back,” he says.

Alford knew, however, that the longer an injured employeeremained out of work, the higher the chances that person wouldnever return to work, which translated into a lifetime of workers'compensation benefits. Several return-to-work studies cite the samestatistic: There is only a 50% chance that an injured employee willreturn to work after a six-month absence; this declines to a 25%chance following a one-year absence, and is further reduced to a 1%chance after a two-year absence.

“So we came up with some modified jobs,” Alford says. “Bringingpeople to work on light duty is something that really hadn't beendone before.”

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Alford is especially proud of Cherokee County'sreturn-to-work program. (Photo: iStock)

Consider the case of one county road worker who suffered aserious on-the-job injury after a piece of equipment smashed hisfoot so completely that toes needed to be amputated. “The doctorsaid he had a permanent restriction of only sedentary duty,” Alfordrecalls.

That man would not be headed back to his old job with the countyroads department. “I had talked to the employee before,” saysAlford. “He had eight or nine years of service, and he wanted towork.” So Alford gathered together the directors of several countydepartments along with the county manager, adjuster and broker, andbegan to look for solutions.

“One of the agencies said, 'Well, we've got a part-time positionat the recycling center.'” That job primarily involved serving as apublic liaison and overseeing community volunteers, who were theones charged with most heavy lifting and materials sorting. “So Isaid, 'let's make this a full-time position.' Then I wrote up a jobdescription, sent it to his authorized physician, and he approvedit.”

Alford says the employee has since been “an outstanding workerwho comes to work every day … so that was a win-win situation.”

But some benchmarks are revealed by circumstances, notstatistics. “When I first came to Cherokee Country,” Alford says,“I used to get these calls from people saying, 'I had an employeeget hurt. Now what do I do?' I don't get those calls anymore.”

Drilling down the risks

Cherokee County Assistant Fire Chief Eddie Robinson likens thestaggering task of developing a countywide employee safety and riskmanagement program to the dramatic way in which his own departmentgrew over the last two decades.

“We have evolved from a fire service that was predominantlyvolunteer-run into a professional organization,” says Robinson, whostarted volunteering with the fire department in 1994. At thattime, there were about 50 firefighters throughout all of CherokeeCounty. Today, thanks in part to a 1999 tax initiative to boostfire protection services, the county now has close to 400firefighters.

Robinson says the risks these men and women face on the jobthese days go beyond burns or smoke inhalation. Consider that a topwork-related concern for today's firefighters are the many cancersand respiratory illnesses linked to long-term exposure to burningcarcinogens. “We are seeing cancer in the fire service at analarming rate,” says Robinson, who recently marked two years inremission from leukemia.

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