What are the most costly injuries that your employees face in the workplace? The 2014 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index catalogued the events that caused employees to miss at least six days of work, then ranked them by workers compensation cost. The 10 common injuries accounted for nearly 84 percent of workers compensation costs.
Click the squares below to learn more about the leading causes of the most serious workplace injuries.
The top ten causes of serious workplace injuries in the US cost companies nearly $60 billion per year—more than $1 billion a week, according to the latest Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index.
Workplace injuries are far from a necessary and unavoidable part of doing business. Here are three steps you can take to help improve safety and better protect yourself, coworkers, and the bottom line:
- Understand your company’s current safety performance. Learn why people get hurt at your company and on your team.
- Volunteer. Work with the area of your company that is responsible for managing risk or safety to identify how to make the workplace safer. The safest firms often have company-wide teams focused on workplace safety. The active involvement of employees throughout the company drives the effectiveness of these efforts.
- Learn. Ask your risk management or safety area what you can do to help improve safety. One simple way to help might be to improve your communications. The way a supervisor communicates with employees influences the number of times those individuals are away from work. In fact, individuals working for managers who had open and honest communication styles filed 47 percent fewer workers compensation claims.*
Liberty Mutual Insurance is a leading provider of a full range of commercial insurance products to small, mid-sized, and large companies. Each day, the insurer works with policyholders—and their insurance brokers and agents—to better manage the total cost of risk. The company has one of the insurance industry’s largest staff of safety professionals dedicated to helping policyholders improve safety and better protect employees, the public, and the bottom line.
* 2007 Liberty Mutual Research Institute, Supervisor Training study
This article was produced by Liberty Mutual and not by the Quartz editorial staff.