Foster Farms Risk Manager Wins Risk and Insurance Innovator Award
16 September 2009
Ernie Machado, risk manager at California's Foster Farms, has been recoginsed with a Risk and Insurance® Risk Innovator Award for revolutionising safety standards in the poultry-processing business. Machado launched a unique testing programme that is helping to solve a problem that often disabled workers.
Workers in the poultry industry are at a high risk of upper extremity accidents, with repetitive motion injuries at the top of injury charts. Foster Farms have worked to install the best possible ergonomic machines and workplaces for their employees processing 1.2m chickens and turkeys daily.
Machado's search for a solution gained traction when Marsh introduced him to Denver-based BTE Technologies, Inc., a leader in functional evaluation and rehabilitation technology. Machado hired BTE based on their experience in helping companies build protocol-testing equipment, launching the Post Offer of Employment Testing (POET) programme in June 2008 at the company's Livingston plant. It is now in place at all Foster Farms plants.
"I believe that if Foster is successful in sustaining its POET programme, it will change the poultry industry," said Gary Pohlmann, senior vice president and director of risk consulting in Marsh's Atlanta office.
Workers' benefits from POET programme
Machado, an employee of Foster Farms for 29 years, believed that a better understanding of the physical requirements of a job would allow the company to hire candidates with the physical capacity for the role, decreasing the frequency of injuries, particularly in the first year of employment.
The POET programme is open to all employees, allowing them to objectively demonstrate their ability to handle a job. "In the past, much of the hiring, as well as expediting back-to-work cases, was done very subjectively," said Machado.
One of the challenges to the programme was a risk of screening out potential new hires despite a shortage of qualified candidates. As a solution, jobs were classified in three tiers of physical demand requirements to facilitate selective placement. The procedure also reduced the risk of reverse-impact for female and older workers who could not handle the most physically demanding jobs.
The analysis identified a number of ergonomic risks, allowing Machado, the plant supervisors and BTE's clinical team to implement equipment and process changes to mitigate the risk issues.
Although both Foster's human resources department and organised labour leaders were sceptical, they now are fully supportive of POET, said Machado.
Test results after the first year:
- 87% of applicants tested were placed in positions matching their physical capability to safely perform the job
- 57% of incumbent employees tested were able to progress to more physically demanding jobs
- 47% of incumbent employees were not transferred to jobs that would have placed them at a high risk of injury
- 100% of new claims have been closed
- Costs were reduced by 300% in the targeted injury category of new employees
The Risk and Insurance Risk Innovator Award recognizes winners in 14 different industries who have, in the past year, demonstrated innovation and excellence in risk management.
