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Risk Manager
McCoy Building Supply Centers
San Marcos, Texas

Driving disability rates of his company's drivers in one direction--downward.

With some 330 trucks out on the road for the better part of the day making deliveries to customers, it's no surprise that auto liability would be one of the big concerns for McCoy Building Supply Centers.

McCoy Building Supply is a family-owned company that operates 87 locations and has more than 2000 employees in five states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

An analysis of the data by McCoy's insurer Liberty Mutual, however, showed, that the San Marcos, Texas-based building supplies distributor had a problem.

Based on a benchmark analysis, McCoy Building Supply was doing twice as poorly as other businesses in its region.

The company decided to tackle the problem by implementing a decision-driving program that is based on an off-the-shelf program developed by the carrier.

But Eastwood took that program and customized it to make it more meaningful for McCoy drivers and the company's business in particular.

Decision driving is more than just driver training because people are expected to already know how to drive. Instead, the course teaches drivers how to anticipate problems, instills awareness of their surroundings and offers tips on how to do that.

Eastwood customized the program for McCoy drivers, who drive big trucks down residential roads, loading and unloading lumber and other kinds of building materials and deliver them to people's homes.

Those drivers needed to know how to handle the trucks, how to secure the materials, how to get the materials on and off the truck and how to bring the materials onto someone's property without damaging the property or injuring workers.

After developing that program, Eastwood decided to implement it by training the trainers first. He brought in the assistant managers of the company's stores and had them take the course and then sent them out to train the company's drivers.

The course is flexible enough so that there's something in it not just for new truck drivers but also for experienced ones as well.

The result is that McCoy's record, which was once twice as bad as the competition's, is now 50 percent better than the competition's, he said.

"We are now the benchmark," Eastwood said. "Decision driving has brought our losses way down," he said.

McCoy's accident frequency has been cut in half over the last two years as a result of this program, said Linda Flowers, executive account representative at Liberty Mutual.

In general liability, the frequency is also down 50 percent because of behaviors he has been able to change in the stores, she said.

Eastwood has also put a lot of effort into the company's return to work effort. "We're probably known as the most aggressive return to work program in this part of the country," he said. "I'll take anybody back with any restrictions," he said.

He said he believes that it is better for workers to be able to return to work quickly, better for them physically and better for them mentally.

McCoy's disability day rate today is one tenth what it was about seven years ago, he said.

Flowers said Eastwood has gone above and beyond for workers by calling them up if they are injured on the job and asking if he can stop by to visit them and if there is anything he can bring. "He takes them food, he makes sure they get to the doctor," she said. "He's very hands on. He communicates with them without being intrusive,"

And Eastwood said he has made it a priority to always be available for employees who may have a problem and need his guidance and advice.

"They have got to be able to get a hold of somebody," Eastwood said.

Between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., if they need someone, they can hit zero and tell the operator they need to talk to someone in risk management and he can be tracked down, Eastwood said. After hours and on weekends, he tells employees and management to call him on his cell phone.

"I'll answer it. They may not get me immediately, but they will get me," he said. "They want to reach someone--that's their biggest complaint."

--By Patricia Vowinkel

Senior Vice President of Human Resources
The LDF Companies
Wichita, Kan.

Making programs accessible to managers via the intranet puts a dent in frequency claims.

For a company with dozens of restaurants as well as a beer distributorship, the challenge isn't so much identifying the key risk areas as it is finding a way to effectively communicate to employees how they can avoid getting hurt. The next step is to make sure they understand the right safety procedures and actually practice them.

With more than 1,500 employees at 42 Wendy's restaurants and a beer and beverage distributorship with more than 200 employees serving the Kansas and Oklahoma region, LDF Companies was looking for a way to cut common sources of losses such as slips and falls, back strains, traffic and forklift accidents.

While most companies put new employees through some training, Bill Goodlatte, senior vice president of human resources for Wichita, Kan.-based LDF, wanted to make sure that safety education wasn't a one-time thing and that employees could take advantage of the training no matter what shift they were working.

Many companies give employees training when they are first hired and then nothing after that. But looking over the losses for 10 years, LDF found that it wasn't just the new employees who were at risk.

"It wasn't just the young people getting hurt, it was spread out all over the place," said John Mills, senior account representative at Liberty Mutual. "Training is not effective if it's only reaching the new people."

So working with Liberty Mutual, Goodlatte developed a training program that was put up on the company Web site. "Getting it to all of those people in all of those locations was a challenge," said Jim Kahlfeldt, loss prevention consultant at Liberty Mutual. "The innovation was putting it on his intranet," he said, making it accessible to everyone.

While large companies have put training programs on their intranet sites before, it's still not that common for smaller enterprises, he said. "From my perspective, it's easily accessible to all the employees and not so much the employees, but the managers--to make it easy for them to do safety," Kahlfeldt said. "The typical manager may say--'Oh, be safe.'

"This gives them an actual tool to talk about the topic."

Then he took the next step, which was to require each employee to participate in the risk management program suitable to their position and take a corresponding test.

Those who do not pass the test had to review the program and keep taking the test until they passed. Only one grade is passing: 100 percent. To ensure that the message stays current, the company requires every new hire to take the test, and every employee to take the appropriate test and pass it each year. "We actually started this program about three years ago," said Goodlatte, who won the Kansas Restaurateur award for 2007. "And we have been refining to it, and adding to it."

Since then, the program has cut workers' comp claims and traffic accidents in both frequency and severity. From 2002 to 2007, workers' comp frequency is down by a third and auto frequency down by 27 percent. The programs have also boosted employee morale, enhanced professionalism and made LDF an overall safer place to work. The training video library includes courses on sexual harassment, which all employees must take, and on topics such as truck driving, fork lift operation, warehouse safety, hand truck safety, back safety and fire hazards and prevention.

As part of refining the risk management program, Goodlatte said a Liberty Mutual loss consultant comes out to the company's operations and makes recommendations for improvements, which can than be incorporated into the training materials. "He comes out and does store and facility inspections and then, based on those, he gives us advice as to which areas to focus on," said Goodlatte.

--By Patricia Vowinkel