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.