August 9, 2011

Preventing Workplace Theft

Filed under: Privacy,Safety — Olivia @ 1:46 pm

Since the onset of the current recession, police departments all over the United States are reporting increased instances of theft, burglary, and robbery. According to the Police Executive Research Forum, 44 percent of police departments have reported such increases.

If you are at all like me or most people if they would admit it, you leave personal belongings out in the open at least occasionally. Have you walked away from your work computer for any length of time without locking it? Are you certain your office building secure from outside visitors? This gives criminals easy access to walk in to your office, and walk out with a variety of stolen goods.

In addition to the company’s laptop that disappears, consider the loss to the company’s intellectual property – proposals, proprietary notes and reports, and other confidential information. Consider, too, your employee’s sense of safety and trust that their employer can take care of them.

Many of these thieves watch office buildings and know when the opportunity is just right. Using common sense and training your employees on what to do can go a long way in preventing these thefts.

  • Don’t let someone “tailgate” (follow behind you) to gain access to your building. Card readers are there for a reason: to prevent unauthorized people from getting in.
  • Leave your personal items (purse, keys, etc.) in a locked drawer – be sure to take the keys with you! If you don’t need something, leave it at home.
  • Use visitor badges to identify strangers that are supposed to be in your office, such as the telephone maintenance person. Anyone without a badge will stick out and raise suspicion. Keep it simple – the badges don’t have to be anything special, just something that identifies individuals as visitors.
  • If you see a stranger in your office, you don’t have to confront him or her yourself. Call the police or your security officer. If you choose to confront him or her, asking something as simple as “Can I help you?” is sometimes enough to deter the person.
  • If you are the last person to leave your office at the end of the day, check your co-workers’ computers, copiers, and critical files to be sure they are all secure.

Above all, communicate this to your employees and explain the reasons for your safety measures. If everyone is held to the same standards, this could help them recognize a shady character lurking about. For more information, and a security quiz, check out the USDA’s Office of Procurement and Property Management, http://www.dm.usda.gov/physicalsecurity/theft.htm.

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December 22, 2010

What are the 10 Most Dangerous Jobs?

Filed under: Safety — Jane @ 3:02 pm

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the workplace has never been safer.  In 2009, 4,340 people died at work, that’s down 16.8% from 2008.   Despite some terrible mining and oil rig disasters, last year’s death rate of 3.3 deaths per 100,000 workers is the lowest ever reported.   The most dangerous job is fisherman (200 deaths per 100,000), followed by logger  (62 fatalities per 100,000), then pilots (57 per 100,000), farmers/ranchers (36 per 100,000), and then roofers, ironworkers, sanitation workers, industrial machinists, truckers/drivers,  and construction workers.

While a decline in the number of deaths is certainly a good thing, some of that is most likely due to the high unemployment rate, particularly in industries like construction, which see more workplace accidents.

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March 4, 2009

Federal Court Upholds Workplace Gun Law

Filed under: Safety — Tags: , , , , — Jane @ 11:06 am

A federal appeals court has upheld an Oklahoma law that requires employers to allow employees to keep guns in locked vehicles, even when on employer property.

Specifically, the Oklahoma law prohibits any “person, property owner, tenant, employer or business from establishing any policy or rule that has the effect of prohibiting any person, except a convicted felon, from transporting and storing firearms in a locked vehicle on any property set aside for any vehicle.”

Several employers challenged the law when it was passed in 2004 by the Oklahoma legislature. The employers won the first round of the legal battle when an Oklahoma federal trial court judge ruled that the state law was trumped by the federal Occupational Safety Act.

The appeals court reversed, however, principally because OSHA, in 2006, declined to adopt a standard on this issue and instead decided to defer to state and local authorities. Seven other states (Minnesota, Alaska, Kentucky, Kansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Florida) have similar laws on the books.

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July 29, 2008

Suicide Tied to Work Injury Ruled Compensable

Filed under: Safety — Tags: , — Jane @ 7:59 am

A suicide sufficiently connected to an industrial injury is compensable under Nevada’s workers’ compensation system, the state’s highest court has ruled.

State law barring family members from collecting workers’ comp benefits if a worker’s death resulted from a “willful intention to injure himself” does not apply when a “sufficient chain of causation is established,” the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled in Sharon Vredenburg v. Sedgwick CMA and Flamingo Hilton-Laughlin.

To establish such a chain, claimants must demonstrate that the employee suffered an industrial injury that in turn caused a psychological injury severe enough to override rational judgment. Claimants must then establish that the psychological injury caused the employee to commit suicide, the court said.

The decision stems from a back injury that Danny Vredenburg, a bartender, suffered from slipping on a flight of stairs, causing disc derangement in several locations along his spine, court records show. Despite surgery and the use of pain medications and anti-inflammatory agents, he continued to experience pain.

A doctor diagnosed Vredenburg as psychologically destabilized because of his chronic pain and recommended that he claim permanent disability status. When Vredenburg killed himself, a second doctor opined that Vredenburg did so because of the unrelenting pain, and his spouse then filed for death benefits.

But the insurance administrator for Vredenburg’s employer ruled that the doctor’s opinion lacked a medical rationale linking the suicide to his industrial injury and denied the claim.

A workers’ comp appeals officer agreed, and a district court denied the claimant’s petition for judicial review. But the Nevada Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for proceedings consistent with its opinion.

Source: Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance.

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