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Senior Director of Safety & Risk Management
ARAMARK Uniform Services

Going Ergo

With a change in the texture and design of its laundry bags, ARAMARK Uniform Services employees are less susceptible to injury.


Under Carrie Williams, senior director of safety and risk management for ARAMARK Uniform Services, getting the "right minds in the room" for a roundtable on safety suggestions for her division led to a staggering 50 recommendations.

But there was no question what the No. 1 challenge was: to develop a laundry bag for the company's route carriers that was considerably lighter and that could be washed and dried more efficiently than traditional bags.

"What we were beginning to realize was that we'd been doing a really good job of bringing down the frequency of injury rates within our work group, however we continued to struggle with severity," observed Williams.

Route Sales Reps (RSRs) totaled about 25 percent of the uniform division's workforce but they represented about 80 percent of the group's severity claims.

"So we said, 'What is it about that job that is leading to more severe injuries on the whole compared to other groups of workers on a ratio basis>'" Williams said.

When the study group began looking more deeply into the issue, it recognized that the weight of the laundry bag was causing serious problems.

"Of all the recommendations the study group suggested, we tackled the ErgoBag challenge first because the old cotton bags were like a big heavy pillow," observed Williams. "I called them body bags because they often would weigh more than 100 to 120 pounds. Over time, handling these really had an impact on wrists and shoulders."

Williams noted that, once the study group started concentrating on reducing the weight of the bag, many other benefits flowed from it. For one, the lighter bags were a big advantage to the employees who had to care for the bags because they were made of a porous material that would allow them to vent and drain quicker and easier. This also led to a significant reduction in energy costs.

"By using a different type of material we didn't have to dry the heavy cotton bags," Williams noted.

In addition, the ErgoBag was equipped with multiple handles, allowing for a safer, more ergonomic grip. The ErgoBag also has a "belt loop" design, allowing for easy cord replacement, thereby saving significant time and labor costs.

As co-chair of the national Textile Rental Service Association Safety Committee, Williams was well positioned to recognize the seriousness of the industry-wide challenge created by traditional cotton laundry bags and the need to rethink the process.

Williams initiated this fresh approach by obtaining the sponsorship of President and COO Brad Drummond to create a cross-functional safety improvement team, which was vital to the effort, Williams said.

"Also, clearly my background in terms of understanding the importance of cross-functional efforts in solving any kind of problem came to bear on this project," Williams noted.

Said Debbie Rodgers, Philadelphia-based senior vice president, global risk management at ARAMARK: "Carrie is a terrific team leader. She really gets the importance of collaborating with others, seeking their input and finding a way to bring about a solution that meets the needs of all the constituents who are involved. And that's really the basis for the success of this product."

The ErgoBag pilot began in March 2011 and although it is still in its early stages of implementation, feedback has been extremely positive from Route Sales Reps, plant employees and the company's customers, Williams said. RSRs say they like the lighter and "easier to handle" bag because it provides relief to their backs, she said.

The long-term benefits of the ErgoBag are expected to be a significant reduction of cumulative trauma injuries associated with handling laundry bags, primarily for the RSRs but also for production workers in the company's cleaning facilities.

Although injury reduction data associated with the new bag is not yet available, the uniform services division plans to monitor injury data to help quantify the full impact of the ErgoBag.

"As a result of this project," Williams noted, "we gained efficiencies in terms of allowing people to do their work more quickly and even though some of these were not directly safety related, they benefitted the organization."

Drummond, president and COO, was certainly impressed.

"We greatly appreciate the team approach that Carrie employed through the cross-functional RSR Safety Improvement Team. I look forward to seeing additional innovative solutions that further improve the safety and welfare of our employees."

--By Steve Yahn

A Leader in Safety

Carrie Williams, senior director of safety and risk management for Aramark Uniform Services in Burbank, Calif., is a rare find. There are few women in top management positions in the laundry industry, and that makes her a role model to her peers and to those she mentors. She leads just by being where she is.

More than that, though, is the fact that she brings a lot of business acumen and experience to industry ranks still governed largely by technocrats. "You can empathize more with how the business leaders are facing, if you can speak their language you're way ahead," Williams said.

That's why she's a recipient this year of the Responsibility Leader® award, bestowed on innovators in risk management who have not only developed a unique and practical solution -- in her case a much lighter laundry bag -- but have ensured that the solution also benefits the community at large.

Williams recognizes the privilege and the responsibility of working for a large company. She's pushed her employer to share designs of automated wash floors, and helped the smaller employers fill out OSHA logs, and how to respond when their staffs come into contact with blood-borne pathogens.

--By Cyril Tuohy

Care Manager
Broadspire Services Inc.

Keeping Older Workers Safer

An aging workforce required a safety solution that was geared to its specific needs.


As more and more Americans elect to work later into life, companies need to find ways to lessen the risk that they will get hurt on the job.

Gary Anderberg, care manager at Broadspire Services Inc. in Atlanta, found a way to help companies mitigate those risks, by developing "age stratification loss reports," which outline types of accidents by age within their organizations. Anderberg and his team then use these specialized reports to discuss with clients ways to alter their older workers' work environments, tools or even methods of performing their jobs, to lessen the chance of injuries.

It's all part of Broadspire's Aging Up! program--which Anderberg help spearhead--to help improve the safety of older workers and mitigate a company's exposure to risk.

"Younger employees typically tend to have strains and overexertion injuries, trying to lift something too heavy or reach too far, while older employees typically injure themselves by slipping, tripping or falling, because their eyesight and sense of balance are not as good as they were before," Anderberg said. "Older employees also need different hand tools that are easier to grasp, such as specially made hammers and drills."

Anderberg and his team recommend such mitigation techniques. For one client, a national hospital chain that employs many workers who are in their 70s and 80s, Broadspire recommended that the company every two months spray coating on its hospital floors to make them less slippery, while maintaining their shine.

Anderberg's team also determined that many of the injuries for that age set occurred in the facilities' employee parking lots, as those were typically one of the last renovation projects the company performed after acquiring older facilities. As such, their older workers often fell by stumbling into potholes or on concrete bumpers in the poorly-lit lots.

"After discussing their losses, the company appointed one of their safety people as czar of parking lots to making sure the parking lots get revamped right away," Anderberg said. "When an 80-year-old leaves the hospital at 9 p.m. in the middle of winter, and goes down hard--it's not just expensive, it can be tragic."

Injuries of older workers can also dramatically hurt a company's bottom line, as the average paid severity increases significantly with age, Anderberg said. For example, in the healthcare industry the average severity of a claim for an employee over 50 years old is 3.37 times that of an employee under 30--or a paid severity of $9,668 compared to $2,865. In the retail industry, the average severity of an injured employee over 50 jumps 3.54 times from the average of an injured employee under 30.

Aging Up! combines a mitigation strategy with a new medical management and return-to-work strategy, calling upon nearly 200 board-certified physicians in 39 specialties and a large evidence-based database. Anderberg and his team also take into account "co-morbid" conditions often present in older workers, such as arthritis, hypertension and diabetes, devising treatment plans and return-to-work strategies that are often radically different than those of younger workers.

Candy Raphan, Broadspire's director of medical management, said companies need to do everything they can to protect their aging workforce, not only because it's the right thing to do for their employees, but also because it helps the overall economy.

"By enabling our clients to keep their employees working longer and healthier, we're able to keep the aging worker in workforce, and maximize their tremendous value," Raphan said.

Indeed, 31 percent of the labor force is comprised of employees who are 50 years old and older, up from 20 percent in 1995, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage of workers over 65 is expected to increase, as people are both living longer and delaying retirement out of choice or financial necessity.

A decade ago employers generally did not pay much attention to the particular risks that older workers face, but now an increasing number of disability managers are trying to figure out how to mitigate those risks, Anderberg said.

"There are no silver bullets--no one-size-fits-all solution," he said. "But there are tools to look at, key things to understand. People don't all of a sudden lose their hearing, eyesight acuity or sense of balance--it typically happens over time and very differently for every person."

Anderberg and his team often remind employers that these issues will ultimately affect everyone.

"The aging workforce is something we all hope to be a part of," he said.

"This is the future ourselves we are talking about."

-- By Katie Kuehner-Hebert