By Travis Halsted, ARM, COSS, Loss Control Consultant

In the upcoming year of 2023, I will be celebrating my 10 year anniversary with MTMIC. I have met some amazing people and been through incredible facilities that complete processes that truly change the world. Regardless of the type of facility, I am often met with the question of “what else can we do”. That facility may have a strong safety culture within their employees, and a proactive management commitment to health and safety, but they still want to do more. I can answer them quickly and with certainty. I simply tell them to find the third leg of their triangle of success. With that answer I often get a unique look, but they are usually intrigued and want to hear more.

The triangle of success for any health and safety program is divided into the legs of employee safety culture, management commitment, and the missing link of 3rd party relationship development. A great deal of you already utilize the MTMIC Loss Control Department, but even beyond that there are additional relationships that can be developed to monitor and assist with your health and safety program. One of those would be the longstanding alliance of MTMIC and the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA). The alliance between MTMIC and MIOSHA is one that serves as a building block for trust between employer and MIOSHA. As we are all aware of how nerve wracking a MIOSHA inspection can be, MTMIC’s Loss Control Department aims to utilize the alliance to assist policyholders prior to, during, and after an enforcement visit. This alliance has been in place for over 16 years and both MTMIC and MIOSHA are proud of how the alliance provides MTM members with opportunities to improve their workplace with in-depth knowledge about health and safety.

This past month of September provided us with just that opportunity. MTMIC sponsored a class for our policyholders where 18 attendees received their MIOSHA 10 hour+ card and certificate. During this three-day course the attendees learned a plethora of information that included; health items such as noise levels and air quality permissible exposure limits, ergonomics, hazard assessment for physical hazards in the workplace, safety program development and training, recordkeeping practices, and even the process of when a MIOSHA Enforcement Officer arrives at their building. The attendees were engaged and asked great questions! It was refreshing to hear the attendees talking during breaks and lunches about how they were going to implement some of the items that they were learning. There were lots of laughs, some great stories, a couple of disagreements on policy, and what one would probably consider an unsafe amount of caffeine intake. While we can’t offer these classes every week, we are always looking into particular classes or trainings that we can offer through MIOSHA, or on our own accord.

If you are interested in identifying the ways that you could benefit from the MTMIC/MIOSHA alliance please contact your Loss Control Consultant. We can point out ways that this partnership can benefit just about every industry.

In an unrelated note, I want to take a moment to discuss an email that many of you may have received from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This email is in regards to the electronic submission of injury and illness numbers. Not every company is required to submit these numbers to OSHA. If you aren’t sure of your requirements, I highly recommend contacting your Loss Control Consultant to determine if you are part of the population that must submit those numbers. The email that you may have received is regarding the need to now create a login through the website Login. gov for when you report those numbers. This website is essentially a federal government website that allows you to have one account that can be utilized for many different purposes within the federal government. The email looked a tad suspicious, so our Loss Control Department did some research to check its validity, and MIOSHA confirmed it to be the new process. With that being said, if you are a company that must report those numbers then you will have to create a new login for this process. It appears that this process is currently active for those go getters that want to get ahead of the 2023 reporting. We are here to help if you have any questions about the new process.