If your strategy is to maximize productivity, your safety program must account for not only the visible and dramatic injuries and illnesses that cause absences but also the little things that impair performance. It needs to address not only forklifts but also fatigue, not only head protection but also headaches. A safety program, in other words, must protect not only workers' health and safety, but also their wellbeing.

Implementation: The Manitoba Model

Integrating elements of a wellness strategy into a safety program isn't the kind of thing you can do overnight. It takes time. And, as with any other safety initiative, it requires the support and commitment of management and workers. But if you're serious about pursuing a wellness strategy, a good starting point is to consider the model set out by the Canadian Mental Health Association, Manitoba Division (Manitoba Model).

Unlike most wellness plans which count on workers to take responsibility and supply initiative for their own health and wellbeing, the Manitoba Model is controlled from above by management by means of a steering committee that includes the safety director. This structure makes it a good blueprint for incorporating wellness into a safety program. The Manitoba Model is essentially a feedback loop involving three basic stages:

• Evaluation;
• Intervention; and
• Re-evaluation.

The basic idea is to keep track of how workers are feeling, measure their productivity and make appropriate changes on the fly.

Four-Step Strategy

The Manitoba Model isn't just a lot of academic hot air. It's based on case studies and best practices involving real companies. The case studies suggest that the Model works best when it's phased in gradually within a particular business unit rather than imposed across the company in one fell swoop. The Model suggests a four-step process:

1. Obtaining Worker Feedback

The first step is to have workers fill out a questionnaire to determine their perceptions about their health, wellbeing and what causes them to feel stress at work. Respondents should remain anonymous so they provide candid responses. (You can adapt the model questionnaire in the Tools section of SafetyXChange).

2. Evaluation of Feedback

Next, the safety director and other members of the steering committee evaluate the answers from the questionnaire to identify problems that need to be addressed. For example, questionnaires might reveal that a certain process is unusually stressful or fatiguing.

3. Intervention

This step involves prioritizing the identified problems and deciding when and how to address them. Management should let workers know when they take steps to resolve problems to reassure them that their concerns are being taken seriously.

4. Re-Issuance of Questionnaires

The first set of questionnaires serves as a baseline. Once the results have been processed and interventions taken, the cycle begins again. How long should the cycle last? Answer: Between one and three years, according to the Model's authors.

Conclusion

To be fair, the Manitoba Model is a strategy for implementing a wellness program controlled by management across an entire company. However, it can be scaled down and focused to health and safety activities. In other words, safety directors can adapt the approach to collaborate with the HR department and integrate elements of wellness into their safety programs.

OSHA & THE CANDIDATES

Rudy Giuliani

Rudolph Giuliani

By Glenn Demby

Bio: Born Brooklyn, NY, May 28, 1944. Only child of Italian immigrant parents. Father involved in organized crime and served time in Sing Sing prison. Graduated from Manhattan College (1965) and NYU Law School (1968). Joined U.S. Attorney's office in 1970 and named Chief of Narcotics Unit three years later. Served as chief of staff to U.S. Deputy Attorney General in Washington for two years. Went into private law practice, 1977 to 1981. Named Associate Attorney General (third highest ranking position in U.S. Justice Dept.), 1981. Earned reputation as no-nonsense prosecutor targeting organized crime and narcotics dealers. Lost close race for New York City Mayor, 1989. Elected Mayor four years later. Re-elected, 1997. Opened private consulting firm after leaving office in 2002.

Position Regarding OSHA: As with other Republican candidates, Rudy Giuliani doesn't talk about OSHA on the campaign trail. I could find no public statements in which the Mayor has addressed the issue of the ergonomics standard. In fact, the only clues of where Giuliani stands on OSHA come from his record as Mayor and general statements of philosophy on government.

Although often a polarizing figure, Rudy Giuliani was a popular Mayor who presided over New York during a period of great economic prosperity. The Mayor first gathered nationwide attention for significantly reducing crime. But he didn't become a truly national figure until September 11, 2001.

The Ground Zero Controversy: Mayor Giuliani's response to 9/11 is a subject of controversy. Even his most ardent opponents credit the Mayor for his Churchillian efforts at rallying the City and restoring its morale at one of the worst moments in its history. However, the Mayor has also been criticized for his handling of the crisis. The most pointed of these criticisms relate to matters of workplace safety:

• Firefighters: Critics note that the firefighters who responded to the attacks on the World Trade Centers were outfitted with VHF radios that were not only obsolete but incompatible with the UHF radios used by the police. The resulting communications breakdown resulted in the needless loss of dozens of lives, critics contend.
• Rescue Workers: The Mayor is accused of having deliberately understated the risk posed by toxic vapors at Ground Zero and either deliberately or recklessly allowing rescue workers to work at the site without respirators (in violation of OSHA standards).

The Mayor and his representatives vehemently deny the charges and claim they're unfair.

Record as Mayor: While Mayor of New York City, Giuliani:

• Created the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in 1996 to respond to public emergencies. But OEM's response to 9/11 has been criticized as disorganized and inadequate;
• Privatized more than 60 public services including sanitation, public property maintenance, school construction and jail administration; and
• Launched an effort to get low income, uninsured children and adults into Medicaid and other public health insurance programs.

General Position on Regulation: Although he hasn't singled out OSHA, Mayor Giuliani supports a number of regulatory reform measures that would directly affect the agency, including:

• Cutting the federal civil service by 20% through attrition and retirement;
• Requiring agency heads to identify at least 5% to 20% in spending reductions;
• Establishing a Government-wide Accountability Program (called "GAPStat") modeled on a program he used in New York to evaluate the effectiveness of each federal agency and eliminate waste; and
• Giving insurance companies financial incentives to promote wellness and healthy lifestyle programs.

Rhetoric: "All spending is discretionary and it has to be looked at from the point of view of, can we afford it now? Is it appropriate to pass it on to the next generation? This is what I did in New York City. I restored fiscal discipline..."

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