Workers' Comp - A Different Perspective On Cause & Effect

If one looks at the essence of management or life in general, success boils down to the degree of one being more the cause of things versus being more the effect of things.

The baseball player who can hit the ball with regularity is causing the effect versus the batter who solemnly trudges back to the dugout as being the effect (of the pitcher).

The child learning arithmetic feels triumphant when his answer is correct. He is cause over the adding of those numbers. The child does not feel good when he gets the answer wrong. He is, to this degree, the effect of these numbers.

The teachers who go home frazzled with spitballs in their hair are being the effect of their students. Conversely, teachers who leave their jobs feeling good and that have orderly classrooms with kids learning, are being more cause.

When we apply this concept to management it is easy to determine whether we are cause or the effect of our jobs.

 
In fact, stress can be defined really as the manifestation of areas in our life where we are more the effect than the cause of something.

How is this concept germane to controlling workers' comp costs?

First we will address the manager and then examine this concept from the employee's perspective.

To manage equates to control, which can be defined as being more cause than effect over job related activities. I have always struggled with the prevailing model of managing workers' comp costs and how any workers' comp executive can feel entirely in control.

 
Using this paradigm, or anything vaguely similar, is it at all possible to be cause over controlling workers' comp costs?

Even if we are quite expert at claims cost containment, we will be thrust back to being the effect when tomorrow brings more claims. This method of management creates a moderate win situation with potentially high stress and will continue until we can prevent tomorrow's injuries equally well.

We see many businesses in manufacturing, healthcare, distribution, logistics, city and county governments, etc., that experience a high frequency and severity of sprain/strain injuries. Despite savings due to aggressive claims management, the Holy Grail is in preventing tomorrow's injuries today, before they happen.

Now that is managing from a position of "cause" versus the more stressful position of being the effect of unwanted and costly injuries.

The manager wanting to be more cause over their job would also be greatly helped to the degree that their staff is cause over their jobs.

 
A good example of this was a woman who worked in an office environment who had been taking a pain killer to squelch a headache intermittently for over 8 years. During a Sittingsafe® ergonomics workshop this woman learned, drilled and practiced how to set up any workstation specifically for her body and how to stretch away physical stress.

This woman did a lot of mousing. Her mouse was positioned, off to the right and away from her body, a very common position for computer users.

 
Well this woman was unknowingly contracting these same arm, shoulder and neck muscles 4-hours a day for 12 years. This innocent daily stress insidiously accumulated over time to cause neck pain and a chronic headache.

In that workshop she experienced the power and simplicity of learning how to be more cause over her health versus being an innocent victim of her job. She had discovered the source of her long term and life-altering headache and at once went from being the effect of her job to being more cause over it and her life. Within days she was off her pain medication and was no longer a potential liability to the company.

It has been said that life is a game. In games, winners are more cause and losers are more effect. In the game of business, successful executives are being more cause than effect. That is the simplicity of it.

Workers' comp executives can now win the game of preventing tomorrow's claims today and be more cause over workers' comp costs than ever before AND reduce stress at the same time!

It is always good to hear from you. If you have any suggestions for articles or would like certain aspects of this one expanded upon, please let us know.

Sincerely,

Dennis Downing, President
Future Industrial Technologies, Inc.