Sustainability & Risk/ Health & Safety / Objective

Safety Managers Tracking Work Restrictions for Employees

Objective

In order to comply with government workplace regulations, as well as provide a supportive and safe working environment, safety officers occasionally need to restrict employees from performing certain job-related tasks. For example, a safety officer may restrict employees from performing certain tasks because:

  • Employees do not have the proper training or equipment to safely perform the job.
  • The area in which employees work is unsafe. For example, it is undergoing construction, or an accident has occurred here which is being investigated.
  • Employees have a medical condition that prevents them from performing the job. For example, pregnant workers may be restricted from lifting heavy objects, or a worker with a concussion may be restricted to minimal computer use until fully healed.
  • Employees have been injured on the job and cannot safely perform their standard tasks.

As part of managing the corporate safety plan, safety officers need to track all restrictions for employees, whether they be permanent or temporary, due to general conditions or resulting from workplace accidents. Thoroughly documenting workplace restrictions, their time frame, and their causes is important on several fronts:

  • ensuring employee safety . Documenting workplace restrictions ensures that managers are aware of the situation and do not schedule employees for tasks that will compromise their safety. In the event that managers ignore or are not aware of work restrictions, employees can point the manager to the restriction as proof as why they cannot perform a task.
  • complying with regulations from governments, unions, and other involved parties . Regulations from government agencies, unions, or labor contracts may spell out specific policies on restricting work due to safety issues. Documenting all restrictions that the company implements provides an audit trail and proof that they are meeting regulations.
  • assessing the impact of workplace accidents . When an accident occurs and employees may be restricted from performing their jobs while recovering from injuries or while waiting for the area to re-open after investigation. During this time, standard operations cannot proceed and productivity may suffer. By analyzing the restrictions that occur because of accidents, managers can assess the impact of accidents and institute measures to prevent them.
  • preparing for replacement workers. When employees are restricted from their normal work, managers needs to ensure that the work is still performed and may need to re-assign responsibilities or hire temporary replacement help. Having a complete list of work restrictions and their time frames supports managers in their planning.
  • preparing for workers' compensation settlements . In the event of long-term injuries sustained on the job, employees may file for a compensation settlement. With full documentation on the work from which an employee was restricted, a company can prove that they made their best effort to ensure that the employee's health was not further compromised when they returned to work and that the company promoted a safe situation for the injury to fully heal.

Solution

Keeping track of workplace restrictions is an important task for the safety officer, and the Health & Safety application supports the management of workplace restrictions in a few ways:

  • Safety officers can enter general workplace restrictions using the Track Work Restrictions task. This is handy for entering general restrictions that are not related to specific workplace accidents or medical issues. For example, an employee may be restricted from a task until they receive proper training or protective equipment.
  • In responding to workplace accidents , safety officers may need to restrict employees from performing certain jobs, for example, while an accident is investigated or the accident location is cleaned up. Directly from the Track Incident/Incident Response tab, safety officers can enter related work restrictions.
  • Monitoring the medical conditions of employees may result in workplace restrictions. For example:
    • A routine medical checkup may show that an employee has a medical condition that limits their ability to lift heavy objects. From this medical monitoring event, the safety officer can set up the resulting work restriction.
    • Medical monitoring and subsequent work restrictions may be a result from a workplace accident ( an incident) . For example, if an employee sustains an injury due to a workplace mishap they might have follow-up medical monitoring. The medical monitoring may result in a work restriction until the injury is completely healed. In this case, the Health & Safety system enables you to associate the restriction with both an incident and the follow-up medical monitoring for the incident.

No matter how you create the workplace restriction, you can specify if it is permanent or temporary, the type of restriction, and associate any related documents supporting this restriction.

Procedures

Note: A prerequisite for all of these procedures is that the safety officer or business process owner first define the types of work restrictions using the Background Data / Work Restriction Categories task . With this information developed, the safety officer will be able to choose from these categories when entering work restrictions.

Safety officer enters a general work restriction (not related to an accident or medical event)

  1. Run the Track/ Track Work Restrictions task.
  2. Choose the employee for which you want to enter a work restriction.
  3. Choose Add New and in the resulting form enter the details of the work restriction, such as length of time, description, and type of description.
  4. Save the record.

Safety officer enters a work restriction related to a workplace accident (such as a closed-off area, investigation into the accident)

  1. Run the Track/Track Incidents task.
  2. If the accident is already entered into the system, select it and move to the Incident Response tab. If this is a new accident report, select Add New, enter basic information, save the incident, and move to the Incident Response tab.
  3. From the Incident Response tab , choose the Work Restrictions tab.
  4. Choose Add New to create a new work restriction.
  5. Enter details about the work restriction.
  6. Choose Save to save your work restriction. The system automatically associates this work restriction with the incident.

Safety officer enters a work restriction related to injury in a workplace accident

If an employee sustains an injury as a result of workplace accident, the safety manager will want to ensure that the employee is properly monitored by medical professionals. Medical attention may call for work restrictions while the injury heals.

  1. Run the Track/Track Incidents task.
  2. If the accident is already entered into the system, select it and move to the Incident Response tab. If this is a new report, select Add New, enter basic information, save the incident, and move to the Incident Response tab.
  3. From the Incident Response tab , choose the Medical Monitoring tab.
  4. Choose Add New.
  5. Enter details about the medical event. Typically, you will want to complete Monitoring Type with a value that indicates the monitoring is related to a workplace incident. Enter the date of the medical exam.
  6. Choose Save. The system automatically associates this medical event with the incident.
  7. On the Incident Response tab, choose the Work Restriction tab.
  8. Choose Add New to create a new work restriction.
  9. Enter details about the work restriction. Be sure to complete the Related Medical Monitoring Code field with the value of the medical monitoring event created in step 5.
  10. Save your work restriction.

Suppose the incident resulted in the employee missing work for five days and then returning and working in limited capacity for nine days. In this case, you'd enter two separate work restrictions and use the Restriction Classification field to distinguish between the two phases of the restriction.

Safety officer enters a work restriction from a medical exam

An employee may undergo a routine medical exam that reveals a medical condition that prohibits the employee from performing a job. For example, the employee has had surgery and cannot lift items for 8 weeks.

  1. Run the Track/ Track Medical Monitoring task.
  2. Choose the employee for which you want to enter a medical-related work restriction. The system displays all medical events for this employee.
  3. From the list of the employee's medical events, choose the medical event which resulted in the work restriction. The system displays this in the lower pane. Or, create an entry for this medical exam.
  4. Choose the Add Work Restriction button.
  5. Enter details about the work restriction.
  6. Save the work restriction. The system automatically associates the new work restriction with the medical monitoring event.

Safety officer reviews all work restrictions

The safety officer can run these reports to review and analyze both active and past work restrictions: