Employees in a variety of occupations can find themselves in situations with the potential to be exposed to violence at work. De-escalation tactics can be used to defuse volatile situations so they don’t reach the point of violence.

What is de-escalation?

De-escalation is one technique that can be used when confronted with violent or aggressive behavior.

According to professionals, de-escalation means “transferring your sense of calm and genuine interest in what an individual wants to tell you by using respectful, clear, limit-setting boundaries.” In short, de-escalation is the process of managing someone else’s behavior with your own.

How does the concept of de-escalation intersect with workplace safety?

As workplace violence remains a continuously growing threat, many industries are beginning to utilize the benefits of de-escalation training.

These industries include:

• Education/academic settings
• Healthcare
• Policing/public service
• Social work

Are there some general de-escalation tactics that apply universally?

While specific threats vary among industries, Jason Clausen, a Loss Prevention Specialist at SFM, notes that many de-escalation tactics apply universally.

“These tactics all require a state of calm, and operate around the cornerstone of active listening,” he said.

General de-escalation tactics that apply universally include:

• Respecting personal space
• Maintaining safe body positioning
• Giving clear, concise direction
• Setting obvious boundaries
• Conveying empathy
• Establishing positive tone of voice

De-escalation resources

De-escalation training can be helpful to employees in many fields. To learn more about de-escalation, view these SFM resources:

• De-escalation Team Training – health care
• De-escalation Team Training – schools 
• Alternative intervention and de-escalation tactics, 5-Minute Solutions safety talk 

Originally published December 2020

By Nick Johnson, CSP, Loss Prevention Specialist

Imagine this scenario:

We are at the airport waiting for our departure flight. While waiting, we see our incoming plane land, taxi from the runway, and dock at the jet bridge with no issue. We watch as all the previous passengers disembark, and the plane is refueled. Soon, the gate attendant calls passengers to board. The process is running like a well-oiled machine with no delays, and it looks like it will be a smooth departure.

Once settled into our seats, we wait to depart, but minutes after the scheduled departure time, the pilot explains over the intercom that they found some “irregularities” during their pre-flight checklist. Since we just watched this plane land and taxi with no problem, it seems like it will be just a minor delay. After 10 more minutes pass, the pilot comes on the intercom again to express concern about the “irregularities,” and the maintenance team has been summoned.

Finally, the pilot comes back on and explains that the maintenance team reviewed the data and decided to fully assess the plane before clearing it for flight. Passengers are asked to disembark and go to another gate to board a different plane. There are audible groans throughout the plane, but who wants to be on a plane with a potential mechanical issue?

So how does this story relate to pre-task planning?

If the flight crew hadn’t performed a pre-flight check, we would have embarked on a flight with an increased risk for a tragic incident.

Experience doesn’t guarantee safety

Part of my role as a workplace safety professional is to speak with clients about pre-task planning. Employers often respond that their employees are well trained, or they perform this work “all the time.” I love to hear that! The problem is that even well-trained and competent employees can have incidents and be injured when placed in less-than-safe situations and environments.

Safety risks can change daily and it’s imperative that employees have opportunities to identify them so they can use their training to solve problems before they result in incidents.

Pre-task planning identifies potential hazards for a particular time frame, environment and/or work task. Taking time to ask questions before beginning work allows teams to focus on hazard recognition and put specific controls in place to prevent incidents from occurring.

A little preparation goes a long way

By prioritizing pre-task planning, employees can focus on hazard recognition so when working on a task, they can perform knowing they’ve put appropriate safety controls in place.

I encourage implementing pre-task planning at the start of the day and after lunch. It can be an excellent tool to prevent severe incidents and help reduce pesky (and potentially dangerous) one-off incidents.

Give it a try!

What questions should employers be asking to identify hazards? There is a wide range of topics to address relating to mental, physical, and environmental states, such as:

• What is the task I am performing, and what’s the end goal?
• What could go wrong with this task?
• Is there a potential to fall, be struck by or caught between objects/equipment or to encounter energy sources (electrical, hydraulic, etc.)?
• What other work is being performed in the area that might affect me?
• How will I control my work area to ensure safety?
• Do I have the proper equipment to perform this task safely?
• What physical limitations do I feel would prevent me from performing this task safely today?
• What is the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for this task?
• How will I mitigate the physical demands to prevent strains and sprains?
• How knowledgeable am I about the task being performed?
• What questions do I have about how to perform this task safely?
• How focused am I on the task at hand?

While this is not a comprehensive list of questions, it should serve as a good starting point to customize your own approach. The idea is to give employees every opportunity to assess a situation in real time and use training received to problem-solve and prevent incidents.

With the shift to remote and hybrid work in recent years, many employers are quickly learning how to support employees in their new work environments. As with in-office workers, remote and hybrid employees are subject to cumulative injuries, which are typically a result of poor ergonomics at their workspace.

Common slips, trips and falls are also frequent claims we see from remote and hybrid workers. These types of injuries can be avoided with proper training and preventive measures.

Injury prevention

As an employer, you have the ability to help prevent injuries among your employees, regardless of where they’re working.

“Preventing an injury before it happens really starts with the employer,” said Mike Fetting, SFM Loss Prevention Specialist. “Educating employees on ergonomic best practices, and home office maintenance and safety when they’re working remotely can help reduce the likelihood of injury.”

He recommends encouraging employees to set up their home or remote office spaces with these tips in mind:

Keep your office tidy and free of hazards

• Organize cords so they’re tied up and tucked away
• Eliminate clutter, especially in walking paths
• Clean up spills immediately to avoid slips and falls

Optimize your desk setup for proper ergonomics

• Sitting desks. Maintain neutral posture at the desk by adjusting your seat so you can keep your feet resting comfortably on the floor or on a footrest. Hips should sit at a 90-to-110-degree angle and your upper arms should rest comfortably at your side, with elbows at a 90-to-100-degree angle. The backrest of your chair should meet your back as you sit up straight and should support the natural curve of your back.
• Standing desks. Situate the desk height and your body so your upper arms can rest comfortably at your side, with elbows at a 90-to-100-degree angle, and your feet align below your head and hips. Wrists should be held straight, not pressed into the edge of the desk. Wear shoes with insoles or stand on an anti-fatigue mat with beveled edges that sits flat on the floor.

Utilize ergonomic tools and proper placement of office technology

• Adjustable monitor stands. Center the monitor in front of your keyboard and keep the top of the screen at eye level, or slightly below eye level for those who use bifocals. Use adjustable monitor stands to achieve the correct height for your body. Your monitor should be about an arm’s length away, but move it closer or increase the font if you find yourself leaning forward.
• Headsets. Go handsfree and eliminate neck issues from cradling a traditional office phone by using an over-the-ear or in-ear headset. Corded or cordless headsets are both better options than a traditional office phone when taking phone calls throughout the day.
• Adjustable chairs. Make sure the height, seat, arms and back are adjustable so you can set your chair to maintain a neutral position, as described above.
• Mouse and keyboard cushions. Your wrists should be raised and level when using your mouse and keyboard, and your keyboard should be set flat. Do not rest your wrists on anything while keying. Your hands should project straight out from your forearms, and not bend back at the wrists.
• Footrests. You may need a footrest to help achieve neutral posture when working at a higher desk. Once you set your chair to the correct height to allow for neutral arm placement, set the footrest below your desk to keep your legs from dangling and take the weight off your thighs.

Individual needs vary

“This guide includes standard practices that most people will find appropriate, but you should find what works for you using these tips as a starting point,” said Fetting. “If you find you prefer to have your knees slightly above your hips, that’s OK. Everyone is different.”

He also suggests that employees change positions at their desks occasionally to reduce the chance of a cumulative injury, which can happen because of repetitive movement or positioning.

“There’s no perfect position that you should remain in 100% of the time,” said Fetting. “Occasionally adjust things, such as raising or lowering your chair or monitors by an inch, to find alternatives that work for you.”

We have more resources to help you educate employees on their role in safety and injury prevention in office settings on our website.

Your safety committee can be a powerful tool for injury prevention.

A group of dedicated employees from throughout your company focused on making your workplace safer can make a real difference.

Whether you have a safety committee already or are thinking of starting one, you can use these best practices and activity ideas as a guide.

How an empowered safety committee prevents injuries

For one SFM policyholder, a proactive safety committee member helped prevent what could have been a serious injury.

This committee had created safety check­lists in partnership with workers in different areas of the business. They walked through the checklists before each committee meeting.

On one walk-through, a safety committee member discovered a frayed cord on a welder. The employee immediately reported the defect and had the machine taken offline until it could be fixed. He didn’t wait until the meeting to report the issue, since a frayed cord could cause electrocution. The committee member was proactive and empowered to address safety concerns on the spot.

Safety committees are most effective when they can identify issues and have the power and resources to solve them. When a safety committee is working as it should, employees and managers work together to address safety concerns before they cause injuries.

Benefits of a safety committee

You may be required by state law to have a safety committee, but even if you’re not, it’s worth considering.

In Minnesota and Iowa, companies with more than 25 employees are required to have a safety committee that meets regu­larly. Some companies with fewer than 25 employees may also need a committee, depending on their safety record and industry. States under federal OSHA do not have a safety committee requirement. (If you’re not sure whether you need a safety committee, check with your regional OSHA office.)

Even if you’re not required to have a safety committee, it can help you:

• Give employees an avenue to bring up safety concerns
• Identify and correct hazards before they cause an injury
• Involve management and employees in making safety part of your company culture
• Educate employees about risks
• Boost morale when employees feel heard and see their concerns addressed
• Reduce the risk of OSHA citations or other state penalties

And of course, if the committee’s work can prevent even one worker injury, it’s time well spent.

Nine safety committee best practices

Even if your state doesn’t require it, having a committee with the goal of preventing injuries and accidents is worth the time and resources. To make your team the most effective it can be, follow these best practices:

1. Define the role and responsibilities of your committee

Develop a written mission statement. Clearly define the duties and responsibilities of the members. Identify and prioritize goals, and establish action plans to achieve each goal.

2. Conduct regularly scheduled meetings

Use the time to discuss accident prevention methods, safety promotion, hazards noted on inspections and other pertinent topics. Review incidents that resulted in injury as well as the “near misses” that didn’t.

3. Review accident investigation forms

Digging deep into the circumstances of accidents will help you prevent them in the future. SFM offers a downloadable accident analysis form . Have all of the supervisors use the same form to make it easier for the safety committee to review them.

4. Look for claim trends

Analyze patterns in your workers’ compensation claims. Consider three data points to start: body part, cause of injury and result of injury. Look for patterns by comparing with other data, like occupation and business location.

If you start by using a report of claim activity from your workers’ compensation insurer, you might want to consider expanding and tailoring your report to include internal information, such as department, shift and supervisor — whatever you think might help narrow the hunt on when, where and why certain injuries occur.

5. Conduct inspections

It’s worthwhile to develop a safety review and inspection process – like the walk-through checklist in the example above – to identify operational hazards and observe employee work methods. Periodic inspections allow you to gauge the effectiveness of your efforts.

During a safety review you should look for: workplace environmental hazards, workstation set-up, work activity, modified work tasks and employees’ awareness of conditions.

6. Eliminate hazards. Correct employees’ unsafe behaviors.

To be effective, your inspections need follow-through. Unsafe conditions must be eliminated. Unsafe behaviors need to be corrected. Document your inspections, including appropriate follow-up procedures. Determine whether past recommendations have been addressed and implemented.

7. Promote safety

Keeping safety in front of the employees will remind them of the importance and will increase their awareness of hazards. Several types of safety promotions can work in any type of organization. See below for a list of fun safety activities your committee can organize.

8. Take action

Following up and taking action are key. If someone is injured or nearly injured, take corrective action to prevent similar accidents from occurring again. Follow up to ensure these corrections are made quickly. This might require increased safety training, additional equipment or safer work methods.

9. Recommend safety training

The purpose of training is to influence employees’ behaviors. Safety orientation should be provided to all workers, especially new employees. It ensures that they are familiar with the hazards of the workplace and know how to complete their job duties safely.

It’s a good idea to provide training regularly for workers of all experience levels and to have a training calendar to support those efforts.

Safety committee responsibilities

Once your safety committee is established, you’ll want to define its scope and responsibilities.

It’s important for all safety committees to define a purpose beyond just complying with OSHA requirements. Identifying objectives gives the group a sense of purpose and provides a roadmap for accomplishing something significant.

To get committee members to engage, start by creating a roles and responsibility sheet. Let committee members choose which tasks they want to take on and write them down. This could include items like planning a safety talk or taking meeting notes.

You may decide to make your committee responsible for some or all of the following:

• Reviewing your safety policies and practices
• Doing regular safety walk-throughs of your facility and noting any concerns
• Encouraging employees to report safety hazards to your group
• Looking at past incidents and “near misses” for patterns and areas to focus on
• Looking ahead to potential issues that could happen in the near-term

The committee provides a venue for front-line employees and managers to work together. It engages people at all levels of the organization and helps to build a cul­ture of safety.

Fun safety committee activity ideas

Are you looking for ideas to inspire your employees or to re-invigorate your safety committee?

Successful safety committees stay interesting, fresh and visible. They get outside of their comfort zones and get creative.

Popular activities that work for almost any type of business include safety contests, posters, special safety/health events, guest speakers and training programs, employee suggestion programs and safety recognition awards.

Get the committee out of the conference room and out into your facility with these ideas for hands-on activities:

1. Schedule a series of Supervisor Initiated Trainings (SITs) on relevant topics
2. Record a video about a safety issue
3. Hang up safety posters from SFM around the facility
4. Create an award for employees who are “caught” practicing safety
5. Bring in an ergonomics specialist to evaluate workstation set-up
6. If your organization holds a benefits fair, have a booth for your safety committee
7. Involve committee members in choos­ing personal protective equipment
8. Hold committee meetings outside during nice weather, or take a field trip for a team-building event

Other ideas include:

• Write safety tips for your company newsletter or intranet
• Create a schedule of supervisor-presented toolbox talks that include opportunities for feedback from employees (such as SFM’s Supervisor Initiated Trainings (SITs) series).
• Facilitate a find it/fix it incentive program to encourage employees to report safety hazards and see that they are corrected.
• Plan an informational campaign — with email messages, posters, maybe even a contest — around a key safety topic like winter slips and falls.
• Create a display and promotional board about a safety topic, such as using traction footwear to prevent slips and falls.
• Implement a “virtual safety store” (a page on your intranet with links to recommended vendors) where employees can learn about recommended home safety products such as carbon monoxide detectors and fire extinguishers.
• Issue awards or plaques to recognize employees who point out safety hazards, for example, a plaque on a machine that states, “This machine made safer by Sarah Smith.”
• Have fun at meetings by incorporating quizzes, team-building exercises, compelling videos, etc.
• Encourage safety committee members to bring a guest to each meeting, who can be an employee at any level of the company. This helps increase safety awareness and sustainability of the committee.

When your safety committee is engaged and empowered, it can serve as a vital piece of your loss prevention program. With enthusiastic members and creative activities, the committee can spread a culture of safety to every employee.

Additional resources on safety committees:

• Safety Committee Success Guide
• Safety Committee Template Packet (Word document)
• Safety committees 5-Minute Solution
• Safety committees CompTalk

This is not intended to serve as legal advice for individual fact-specific legal cases or as a legal basis for your employment practices.

By SFM Loss Prevention Specialist Mike Fetting, CSP, CIEE, CSPHA

The potential for injury from repetitive motion and awkward positions in jobs is widespread across many industries and businesses.

You can greatly reduce the likelihood of these injuries by implementing best practices in workplace ergonomics.

Epicondylitis, tenosynovitis, trigger finger, tendonitis, and carpal tunnel syndrome are all common repetitive motion injuries that can develop over time without correct workplace ergonomics. While these types of injuries can occur in the lower body, they are much more common in the upper body — shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers.

Force, frequency and awkward position are the three main ergonomic hazards. Repetitive motion (frequency) alone is unlikely to cause an injury. The risk elevates when frequency is accompanied by excessive force, awkward position, or both. Vibration, static postures, contact stress and cold temperatures can also play a role in increasing risk.

There are a variety of benchmarks you can use to determine basic injury potential, but a professional ergonomic evaluation is the most accurate way to assess the risk of injury. Even without a professional evaluation, you can perform you own basic risk evaluation.

Consider the following:

• Force/intensity of exertion – Is the effort obvious? Is there a change of facial expression? Does a task using the hands require shoulder or trunk involvement?
• Speed of work – Is the worker visibly rushed or just keeping up?
• Duration of the cycle – Does the specific body part ever get a break while performing this task?
• Hours per day – Does the worker perform this same task all day?
• Awkward position – A neutral position is one in which the upper body is in the handshake position with the elbow at the side. The further away a worker’s body is from that neutral state, the more awkward the position will be, and the higher the propensity for a variety of repetitive motion injuries.

Preventing repetitive motion injury

There are three main tools for reducing the risk of repetitive motion injury: engineering, job rotation and stretching.

Engineering is easily the most powerful intervention. Changes should focus on the main risk factors: force, frequency and awkward position. Examples include changing from pistol grip to inline drivers, tilting the work, adding fixtures to hold the work, adding automation or mechanical assist to the job (or some portion of the process). It is important to work closely with employees and supervisors since changes may cause unforeseen problems. Ask employees to have an open mind and test changes for at least several days.

Once engineering is exhausted, the next most useful tool is reducing exposure through job rotation. Ideally the tasks use very different muscles, but even moderate differences can be helpful. Reducing a specific joint’s use from eight hours per day to two hours per day can cut the risk in half, according to some ergonomic models. One popular method is to change tasks at each break, including lunch. In most places, this means each employee will have three different jobs during the day. Changing tasks every two hours is even better. Some workplaces have high-demand tasks that are rotated after just one half-hour!

Lastly, stretching and flexing to warm up the muscles and get them ready for work can be a valuable addition to a complete ergonomic program. Check out sfmic.com for stretching exercises and workplace ergonomics tips.

The best solutions preserve employee health, increase production, and can even increase your job-candidate pool. Over the long term, fewer injuries often translate into lower workers’ compensation insurance premiums.

Equipment designed to help health care workers lift and move patients safely doesn’t just benefit the workers.

It can also improve patients’ quality of life.

Wisconsin group home owner Steve Campbell learned this firsthand when he introduced a resident to his new Handicare QuickMove, a device that makes it easy to help patients stand up and move around safely.

“When we first took it out of the box he was laughing and smiling,” Campbell said. “He was just ecstatic.”

The resident previously needed a staff member on each side supporting him anytime he wanted to walk. Now the QuickMove provides support, and he just needs one staff member alongside him as he uses it to stand up and move around. As a result he’s walking more and using more of his own muscles, which is making him stronger, Campbell said.

“It’s basically walking on his own,” Campbell said.

Campbell learned about the equipment from SFM Loss Prevention Specialist Carl Gruber, who explained that the equipment could serve two purposes — provide his resident with more independence and protect his staff from injuries caused by manually lifting and supporting the resident.

“It’s kind of a two-for-one,” Gruber said. “It was rewarding to see this patient’s life improve significantly while also protecting the staff from the threat of a serious injury.”

Gruber, who is certified in safe patient handling, trained the staff on how to use the equipment. Campbell said staff members are already seeing the benefits, and he has added peace of mind about the safety of his resident and employees.

Health care workers at significant risk

Statistically, working in health care is more dangerous than both construction and logging. More than half of the health care worker injuries reported to SFM are strains and sprains, and lifting and transferring patients is a common cause.

For more information on safe patient handling, browse our website or talk with your loss prevention representative. SFM has loss prevention representatives certified in safe patient handling working in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska.

This article was adapted from our Loss Prevention 101 webinar. The full recording is available on our webinar page.

Preventing work injuries can save you money, time and stress, but those aren’t the most important reasons to establish a strong workplace safety program.

“Always remember that at the center of every workers’ compensation claim is a person and an injury can interrupt their life, their family, their hobbies, and more,” said SFM Loss Prevention Specialist Mike Fetting. “It’s important not to lose sight of that fact.”

In addition to the impact to the employee, work injuries can lower morale among coworkers and increase workers’ compensation premiums.

The only controllable item in an organization’s workers’ compensation premium cost is its experience modifier (e-mod) which is directly impacted by claim costs and severity. When a claim happens, it affects the company’s e-mod for 3 years.

If your claim history is about average among similar businesses, your e-mod will be 1.0. Each claim that results in a cost has the potential to increase your e-mod above 1.0, meaning worse than your peers, which directly increases the premium amount you pay. The lower your e-mod is, the less you pay in premium.

Hazard assessments and developing controls

Every safety program should include an ongoing process to identify workplace hazards, including anything within the scope of a job duty that could cause physical or mental harm to employees. For example, loud noise levels, wet floors or cracks in the parking lot could all be workplace hazards.

Depending on where employees are working, hazards could exist inside, outside, on a jobsite or even over the road, said SFM Loss Prevention Specialist Dana Mickelson.

Hazards can arise from materials, equipment, tools, or machines used by employees or within the workplace. They can even arise from people such as outside contractors, employees who create unsafe conditions for others, or supervisors who do not correct unsafe issues.

There are several assessment methods that safety and loss prevention leaders can use to identify hazards:

• Identify loss history trends. For example, if an organization had 10 injuries last quarter and five are slips and falls from a wet floor, that should be a good indication to focus on slips and falls. Even if there aren’t any trends, employers can still use loss history to determine which jobs or areas to focus on.
• Use other records to find risks and hazards to focus on. Examples include inspection reports, data safety sheets and job hazard analysis.
• Complete inspections. Inspections can be done by a member of your safety committee, an employee, a supervisor or other leader, or a third party. They should also be completed after incidents occur as part of the investigation process. We recommend performing inspections periodically at different intervals, such as daily, monthly, or annually, depending on the hazard.
• Conduct investigations. Injuries and near misses should always be investigated. The steps of an investigation include collecting facts – who, what, when, where and how – and then analyzing the facts to determine the root causes. Once the root causes are identified, decide what corrective actions to take for each root cause.
• Have discussions. Ask employees about their safety concerns because they know and understand their job the best. Consider developing a safety committee consisting of different disciplines and departments to discuss hazards. During the discussions, think about potential emergency situations, and routine and non-routine tasks, such as those completed only once a year.

Prioritize the hazards identified

Some hazards will have easy fixes or can be corrected on-the-spot, but if there are several hazards without quick fixes, use a risk matrix to help you prioritize. A risk matrix is a grid where you plot likelihood of occurrence on one axis, and severity on the other.

First, determine the likelihood that an incident or event will occur based on a numeric scale – for example, one represents the lowest likelihood and four is the highest. Then, determine the severity if an incident or event were to occur, with one being low severity and four being catastrophic. For example, if you determine a hazard has a likelihood of three, and a severity of two, that is a medium-high risk hazard and should be given higher priority than the low-risk and medium-risk hazards.

Hierarchy of controls

After prioritizing hazards, determine what controls (i.e., corrections) to put in place. There are several options, and some are more effective than others. These options, ranked from most effective to least effective are:

• Elimination: Physically remove the hazard
• Substitution: Replace the hazard
• Engineering controls: Isolate people from the hazard
• Administrative controls: Change the way people work
• PPE: Protect the worker with personal protective equipment

There will most likely be several controls for each hazard. Some controls will be an immediate fix, and in most cases, you need to determine controls that will result in improved and sustainable corrections.

Finally, implement the controls. Develop a plan to document progress and set accountability. The plan should include the hazard, controls, target due dates, who is responsible for implementation, and a completion date.

Keep in mind that performing assessments and determining and implementing controls is a continual, repeated process.

To learn more about building and maintaining your safety and loss prevention program visit the safety tab on our website. You can also reach out to your SFM contacts.