Human Resource Blog

Workers compensation / Safety

I need some help: I work for a mid-size manufacturing company in New York state. We have an environmental safety manager who is supposed to handle all of our workers comp issues. I hired a benefits manager about 6 months, who just told me she’s spending 25 hours per week on workers comp issues.
I’m not sure where workers comp issue should lie; is it with the safety manager, or should it be with my benefits manager?

This is an internal conflict that relates a little to office politics, so we don’t expect to be able to resolve it for you. But what the heck, we’ll try!

Every company (obviously) organizes its own work flow. But at most companies both the benefits manager and the safety manager have responsibilities relating to workers comp. The safety manager makes the first report of the accident, files the initial workers comp claim, investigates the accident and takes steps to ensure that it doesn’t reoccur. Once an employee is collecting workers comp, the benefits manager would coordinate with the employee, staying in touch to determine his or her condition and return date. If the employee had questions on their WC coverage after they begin collecting benefits, then they should probably be directed to the benefits manager.

This arrangement requires the benefits manager and safety manager to work closely together. In many organizations, they will form a good copy/bad cop team with the benefits manager delivering good news to the employee, and the safety manager delivering bad news. That’s only one way for the two to work together, but it’s a very effective way.

At your company, it appears that the safety manager has taken advantage of the fact that a new HR person has been added to the team, to offload about 50% of his work to her. Presumably, the company hired a benefits manager because they had 40 hours per week of work for that person, in the HR department. Therefore, you could make a very strong case that the company has only added a part-time HR employee, who works the equivilant of 15 hours per week for the HR department. The remainder of the time, she is engaged in work that was formerly done by the safety manager. So, the HR Director could make a strong case that he needs to hire another HR person, at least 25 hours per week, so that he will have the equivilant of one full-time employee.

Also, the organization needs to take into account the fact that apparently the safety manager is now doing about half the work he formerly did. In many companies, this would suggest that a cut in salary would be appropriate.