Recommend a new Safety and Security HR policy to achieve cost reduction to the company.
2 points – 1 0 0 w o r d s each
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Safety and Security
With Trudeau’s promotion to HR director, management of safety and security fell
to his assistant, Jose Vasquez. Vasquez is a recent college graduate with a degree in
ergonomics. He came to PAC as an intern during his senior year of college. Trudeau
was impressed with Vasquez’s attitude and enthusiasm and hired him right after
graduation. Vasquez worked with Trudeau on wellness activities and conducted
safety training, but his real forté is his ongoing ergonomics audit. PAC has had high
instances of workers’ compensation claims, particularly carpal tunnel syndrome
claims, and Vasquez expects that his emphasis on ergonomics will help alleviate
the problem. His goal is to check every workstation in the organization and either
approve or recommend ergonomic changes. He has developed an elaborate database
to track the project.
Besides ergonomics, PAC has an active wellness program. In partnership with a local
hospital, PAC conducts an annual on-site health fair providing employees with free
immunizations and voluntary health-risk assessments. Since maintaining a healthy
weight and not smoking are especially important, PAC reimburses employees for
50 percent of the cost of weight loss and smoking cessation programs. PAC also
maintains an employee assistance program.
Schilling asked Vasquez to take on a greater role in risk management. Schilling is
concerned about the increasing rate of workers’ compensation claims and asked
Vasquez to conduct a job-hazards analysis and report the results to him, identifying
which jobs, departments and people are most likely to incur a workers’ compensation
claim. From that information, it is expected that Vasquez will work with the finance
department to develop a cost-saving risk allocation plan.
Unfortunately, the ergonomics audit is so involved that Vasquez is seldom available
for anything else. He is either out in production checking workstations or mired in
spreadsheet tracking. He created an extensive spreadsheet to track the results of the
hazard analysis that Schilling asked for, but so far, little else has been done and the
completed analysis was due on Shilling’s desk last Friday.
With his short tenure at PAC and his focus on ergonomics, Vasquez seems illprepared
to manage the entire safety department. Trudeau knew this when
he promoted Vasquez, but with the hiring freeze, he couldn’t go outside the
organization, and there was no one else with the safety background needed for the
position. Trudeau felt sure that if he worked closely with Vasquez, he could keep
safety and security on the right track.
