Employer nearly eliminates eye injuries by providing protective eye wear variety
Employer nearly eliminates eye injuries by providing protective eye wear variety
Workers select the styles they like — and wear them
Seven years ago, eye injuries were a common occupational hazard at the railroad industry’s research and testing facility in Pueblo, CO, with many of them serious enough to result in lost time from work and to threaten the employee’s eyesight. But now, the work site has virtually eliminated on-the-job eye injuries and has even prevented a number of injuries in employees’ homes.
That drastic reduction in eye injuries is the result of a major effort at the Transportation Technology Center Inc. (TTCI), a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads. Safety officials there launched a comprehensive effort to change the way employees look at eye injuries and the need for eye protection, and the result is a work site where eye injuries are an extremely unusual occurrence.
TTCI employs about 300 people in developing and testing railroad vehicles, tracks, and components. Much of the work is dangerous, with a high risk of flying metal from grinding and chipping, and a good deal of it takes place outside. The unique, 50-square-mile site in Colorado adds its own risk of eye injury because the arid landscape provides lots of sand and debris blowing around. The nature of the work and the landscape could lead some employers to accept some level of eye injuries as unavoidable, but TTCI wanted to take another approach, says Terrence Terrill, manager of site safety for TTCI.
"We originally wanted to reduce the number of eye injuries from what we thought was just an unacceptable number, but then we saw that we could cut them down to nearly zero if we got everyone to adopt the right attitude," he says.
Before the improvements began, TTCI employees were suffering about nine eye injuries per year, Terrill says. At least one of those would be serious enough to result in lost time. The management wanted to reduce the eye injuries, but they found that employees would not comply well with instructions to wear protective eyewear. Also, such protection was not as common seven years ago as it is now, so it wasn’t widely known that industrial jobs required eye protection.
A liberal approach to requiring protection
TTCI already was looking for ways to reduce eye injuries when the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued its personal protective equipment safety standard in 1992. That new standard required the employer to assess the workplace for needed equipment, and TTCI decided that nearly every employee at its site needed eye protection. At that point, the employer decided to provide eyewear to everyone and adopt a very liberal approach to selecting the eyewear.
"We would take from our vendors any new and different eyewear that would meet the safety requirements," Terrill says. "We wanted to get the type of eyewear that was not only functional and provided protection, but types that also were more fashionable. That makes people more willing to wear them."
That approach is what has made the eye safety program so successful, Terrill says. The key to eye safety, TTCI has learned, is letting the employees select their own eyewear to the greatest extent possible.
Eye protection does not work if it isn’t worn, and people can be quite particular about what sort of eyewear they like. Comfort and practicality are significant concerns, but in the end, the cosmetic aspect apparently outweighs all others. "We had our employees tell us what they wanted to wear," he says. "As long as it met the criteria for the work environment, we said yes."
That approach led to a wide range of protective eyewear offered by several vendors at the workplace. Though that may be a contradiction to the traditional business approach of buying in bulk from one vendor to get the best price, Terrill says the higher cost is worthwhile. The flexibility in choosing eyewear makes the workers far more willing to wear protection, and that, in turn, has reduced injuries to almost nil.
Low injury rate is award-winning
There has not been an eye injury at TTCI in the past 15 months, and there has not been a lost-time injury of any type for 18 months. The company accomplished this despite logging 642,000 work hours. The low injury rate led The Hartford (CT) Financial Services Group, TTCI’s insurance company, to award TTCI its Industrial Eye Safety Award for Excellence in March.
There are about 400,000 workplace eye injuries in the United States every year, says Herb Hainlen, executive loss control consultant with The Hart-ford. He works with TTCI’s account and says the site’s eye protection program is a good example of how a safety program should work with employees at every level to accommodate their concerns. Up to 95% of all workplace eye injuries can be prevented, but too often the worker will not wear the gear or wears the wrong kind. Most workers who suffer eye injuries were not wearing eye protection at the time, he adds.
Hainlen says overall injuries were reduced at the same time eye injuries were almost eliminated because TTCI adopted the same approach to other safety improvements, providing workers more input into selecting protective gear and implementing other safety measures. That illustrates the value of listening to what employees want, he says.
"They have more different types of computer mice than I’ve ever seen in one place, just because people aren’t always comfortable with just one type," he says. "I’ve been with The Hartford for 20 years, and this is my textbook case of how to make a safety program work."
A safety resource team at the site includes employees from all levels and all divisions, and it provides management with input on what types of protective gear would be best. The employer is more than willing to provide varied eyewear as long as people wear it, despite the cost, Terrill says.
TTCI spends about $5,000 a year on protective eyewear, or about $17 per full-time employee. In the past, the company spent about $15,000 a year on indirect costs of eye injuries, such as lost work time, not to mention the actual medical costs. Terrill points out that the TTCI workers tend to be highly trained specialists in their field and are not easily replaced when someone is injured at work or at home. That makes lost work time even more problematic than it might be with other industrial employers, he notes.
"It is well worth the expense and the effort," Terrill says. "The indirect cost for a simple eye injury like getting a substance in your eye, even with a quick return to work, is about $800. For that, you can buy a lot of safety glasses."
With a serious eye injury, TTCI might pay as much as $10,000 in indirect costs and workers’ comp claims, he adds.
To make sure the employees are getting the eyewear they would prefer, Terrill solicits vendors every month for new protective eyewear options. Vendors bring in samples about once or twice a week for the safety resource team to review.
Company encourages use of gear at home
The employer even provides prescription safety eyewear for workers, contracting with a local optical company to provide it at a cost of about $100 per person. Terrill says that is well worth the expense, again because the worker is more likely to use the eyewear if it is practical and meets his or her needs.
There is a policy in place that requires protective eyewear use at TTCI for everyone. That includes permanent workers, temporary workers, vendors, visitors, and anyone else on the site. While there can be penalties for not complying, Terrill says TTCI relies more on creating a culture in which employees want to wear the eye gear, just considering it second nature.
TTCI encourages that attitude by providing protective eyewear for employees to use off the job, also. All of the company’s educational efforts regarding eye injuries emphasize that there are hazards at home, in the form of everyday activities like mowing the lawn or working in the garage. Terrill says the company does not mind spending a few more dollars for eyewear to use at home because that approach sends the right signal about the importance of eye protection and helps make it a routine part of the employee’s daily life.
Also, Terrill points out that nonwork-related injuries are equally detrimental for employers. That’s especially true if the employee has unique skills, making it difficult to find a replacement.
"About seven months ago, we had an employee who was in the habit of wearing his eye protection both here and at home," Terrill says. "He had a grinding wheel blow up on him at home, and the eye protection we provided saved his eyes. We were proud that we had helped him avoid a very serious eye injury."
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