By Donna Motley
Vice President of Claims

I have been processing Claims my entire adult working career. And not just processing Workers’ Compensation claims. Many years ago I also processed property damage and motor vehicle claims. While working at my former employer, I had a middle management supervisor tell me “there is no such thing as an accident”. Think about that statement for a minute. I do not believe the statement means an incident that occurred was “intentional”, I think it means it could have been “prevented or avoided”.

Ask yourself how or why do accidents occur? I recently read a good test following an accident is to ask “why” five times to get to the root cause of any problem. Were you rushing – why? Because you were late – why? Because you overslept – why? Because you stayed up too late the night before – why? Because you were watching the Lions win a game – why? Because the Lions are finally doing well and we are excited and hopeful to go to playoffs! Does this remind you of when your child was small and would continually ask why? It’s kind of fun to play out and maybe with surprising results. In the workforce, once you know the “why”, corrective action can be implemented.

I believe the same article I read also mentioned “second order thinking” – defined as – consider future impacts by asking “what comes next” What comes next could be an accident and or injury OR corrective action – how to assure the same accident does not occur again. Thinking “if I rush, I may drive erratically which can result in an accident” or “if I rush, it is easier to slip, trip and/or fall”. Maybe the current terminology is “being pro-active”.

Or maybe this all means we just need to “SLOW DOWN”. MTM’s Loss Control Department basically instructs employers to be pro-active. Do you have lights that are burned out? Are there cracks in the floor or parking lot pavement? Are rugs curling on the ends? Are stairway guard rails secure? Are hoses, cardboard, shavings laying on the ground? Was there an oil spill not cleaned up properly? These are all relatively minor items that can create a hazardous situation and all relatively easy to resolve to avoid a hazardous situation.

My last take away from what I read : “1% daily improvement leads to 37 times ‘growth’ in one year.” I’m not sure who comes up with these statistics, but it makes sense. O.K. – I’ll go back to reading my Harlan Coben books now!