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In 2004 we had a bad accident in the plant, and a worker was severely injured.
That really sent a shock, I think, through the company and we made a lot of change.
We began to look at other things that we could do on the prevention side.
We began to work closer with our hourly group and with our safety committees.
Some of the other evolutions have been the addition of Keith Preston, our Health and Safety Supervisor.
When I first started with Crown Packaging, the first thing I noticed was we really didn’t have a Return to Work Program
in place – a very structured Return to Work Program.
So workers were having injuries and just sort of disappearing from the workplace.
The first thing I wanted to start with was build that Return to Work Program, focus on the worker,
focus on getting the worker better, structure modified duties, gradual return to work,
and really having involvement in the worker’s recovery.
We’ve been able to grow and blossom our program into Stay at Work.
We’re actually taking more of a proactive approach and it’s worked hugely to us to the point where now the culture has changed.
Where the workers will be coming to us now, approaching us saying, “Hey, I’m sore.
I need to go get this looked at. What can you do for me?”
One of the innovations that Crown Packaging launched with regards to our Return to Work Program is community-based healthcare.
We realized there would be a great benefit to our employees, giving them easy and quick access to physiotherapy and massage therapy services.
So we went out into the community, found some physiotherapists and massage therapy clinics that would work for our employees,
set up a relationship with them, and made them easily accessible.
Another step that we took was involving a third-party claims management company.
And that really played an active role for our employees in terms of expediting diagnostic services.
So if it was a workplace injury that had already occurred, we were able to get services such as MRI’s, CAT scans, x-rays
faster for the employee so that we can get a quicker diagnosis, a quicker rehabilitation program set up,
and get that worker back to work.
Crown Packaging sees home injuries or injuries outside of the workplace just as important as injuries that occur at work.
Bottom line is we’ve realized it’s important to keep our employees at work.
So to that end, we’ve made our community-based healthcare programs
available to workers for both occupational and non-occupational injuries.
The difference we’ve really seen, between before we used our community-based healthcare and after,
is a drastic reduction in the small-type injuries that were causing claims or time away from work.
Our Return to Work Program has really helped to enhance the safety program in the plant
and helped to drive our costs down in that area. In 2003 we had close to 36 loss time accidents.
In 2009 we had one.
Our recordable rate has come down to be very close to being the best in our industry.
Crown Packaging has been innovative in our Return to Work Programs, but has never been happy being second best.
We want to be a program leader. We’re going to be the best at what we do.
To that end, we’re going to continue being proactive at what we do,
continue finding new ways of keeping our workers at work, in their best interest, and reducing injuries.