A Southern shopping tradition since 1888, department store chain Belk Inc. initiated a companywide risk management program that not only created a safer work environment and lowered workers' compensation injury rates, but also generated a healthy competition among managers to cut loss costs as well as new enthusiasm among employees to return to work faster--with a side benefit of elevated customer satisfaction.
The program's implementation also earned Belk the title of "2007 Champion" in National Underwriter's inaugural "Award For Excellence In Workers' Compensation Risk Management."
"The catalyst was that they were seeing their accident rate was almost three times the national average," said Gary A. Nesbit, director of risk management at Belk Store Services. "The company didn't have a formal risk management program, and the injury rate was running between 14 and 15 percent"--compared with the nationwide average of 7 percent, and Belk's current injury rate of 4.7 percent.
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