Johnson Employment Services is a vocational rehabilitation services business tha

Johnson Employment Services is a vocational rehabilitation services business that helps customers fulfill their employment needs. The business provides trained employees for in-house and off-site production in assembling, packaging, inspecting, sorting, and shipping. They also serve customers by providing full mail services as well as services in other areas, such as janitorial, ground maintenance, and office support tasks.
Please proceed to The Situation
In 2016, Johnson Employment Services’ experience modifier rate (EMR) was as high as 1.25, and no insurance company wanted their business. The EMR is a number used by insurance companies to gauge both past cost of injuries and future chances of risk compared to other similar businesses. EMRs commonly range from between about 0.75 and 1.5. The EMR is a multiplier applied to the cost of workers’ compensation insurance. The lower the EMR of your business, the lower the workers’ compensation insurance premiums will be.
Because of their high EMR and expensive workers’ compensation premium, Johnson Employment Services knew that it needed to immediately work on improving its safety program and remove the financial cost to its bottom line and the burden to its employees.
Please proceed to The Solution section.
The first step was a review of company safety policies and injury and illness reports. All required written safety programs were in place, and employees were regularly trained. What was not in place was a comprehensive plan to identify all potential safety hazards. Many of the hazardous conditions that caused accidents were not addressed by OSHA standards, such as lifting injuries and heat-related illnesses. Often, employees didn’t report hazardous situations until after injuries occurred, and many didn’t know where or to whom to report these conditions.
The company decided to establish a comprehensive safety and health program using OSHA’s Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs (PDF).Links to an external site. Management demonstrated a commitment and involved and encouraged employees to identify and communicate concerns to their immediate supervisor. Formal hazard identification processes were established, and employees participated in not only the identification of hazards, but suggestions for controlling and eliminating those hazards.
Please proceed to The Impact section.
Over a span of just a few years, injury rated declined and the company’s EMR dropped to well below the industry’s average. Johnson Employment Services’ EMR decreased over the years from a high 1.25 in 2016 to a 0.82 in 2019. Subsequently, Johnson Employment Services’ workers’ compensation premiums were reduced.
Assignment
You are the Occupational Safety and Health Manager for Smith’s Warehouse. After reading about the Johnson Employment Services’ success, you review your company’s injury rates and EMR, which is also greater than 1.0 at 1.2. Your employees perform some of the same functions as Johnson Employment Services, and you also have individual safety compliance programs, but you wonder if an overall safety and health program might reduce your company’s injury rate and EMR as well.
Draft a business letter to Joe Smith, Chief Operating Officer (your supervisor), that effectively communicates to him the need to establish a comprehensive safety and health program using OSHA’s Recommended Practices for Safety and Health Programs. Discuss how this program will aid in controlling injury rates, workers’ compensation costs, and assist with improving productivity and employee morale. Be sure to describe the program you want to implement and describe the essential elements that will be needed to make the program effective. Also, you need to argue the merits of this initiative and provide a justification for this initiative. In other words, argue the merits of such a program and show how this program will be beneficial to the organization. This may require additional research of the literature.
Submission Guidelines
For your letter format, please see the Purdue Online Writing Lab’s guidance for Writing the Basic Business LetterLinks to an external site.. Write your letter using block format. As in all other papers in this course, you should still use citations where applicable and include a reference page in APA format. Provide a cover sheet with your name and the activity name and date, using the APA student paper template.