The News You Need for July 21
How can you eliminate bias and what do recent stories say about safety for road workers?
Treating Injured Workers in the Workers’ Compensation System?
Leadership Link
Sarasota, FL (WorkersCompensation.com ) -- The workers' compensation system, designed to support employees who suffer injuries on the job, often operates on a foundation of bias that unjustly treats claimants as potential fraudsters versus human beings who have sustained an injury while at a specific location or work. This pervasive bias impacts the fairness and effectiveness of the system, leading to mistrust and dissatisfaction among injured workers. By examining the ethical implications of such biases, the workers’ compensation system could incorporate a more empathetic approach to handling workers' compensation claims. This shift in perspective can lead to better outcomes for workers and organizational cultures everywhere, including increased employee morale, reduced turnover, and a more positive public perception of the organization's commitment to its workers.?
Understanding Bias in the Workers' Compensation System?
The workers' compensation system was established to protect employers and provide benefits to employees injured on the job, including medical and indemnity benefits. These statutory benefits are clearly outlined in 50 states and overseen by state compliance organizations. Despite its straightforward nature, the system faces numerous ethical issues in helping injured workers on their road to recovery.?
Bias in the workers' compensation system significantly impacts the treatment of injured workers. Unconscious bias, as described by Howard J. Ross in?Everyday Bias, affects decision-making processes, leading to confirmation bias, where claims adjusters and employers focus on evidence that supports their belief that many claims are fraudulent. This bias is reinforced by negativity bias, which overemphasizes negative information, overshadowing the actual circumstances of the injury (Ross, 2014). Affinity bias complicates the issue by giving preferential treatment to those similar to the decision-makers, undermining fairness (Ross, 2014). Additionally, anchoring bias, where initial information heavily influences judgments, and availability bias, where recent impactful information skews assessments, perpetuate injustice (Ross, 2014). Employers often harbor recency bias, viewing every claim with suspicion based on the most recent negative experience with a claim.?
Ethical Orientation and Professional Work?
From my professional experiences as a claims adjuster and as an employer, I have learned that understanding others begins with self-awareness and empathy. In workers' compensation, this means recognizing the humanity of injured workers and not reducing them to mere statistics or potential fraudsters. Treating injured workers as individuals aligns with the ethical principle of fairness, which is crucial for ensuring just outcomes in workers' compensation claims. This approach fosters a supportive environment and enhances trust and cooperation between employees and the system.?
Incorporating principles from Craig Johnson's?Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership?further strengthens this ethical foundation. Johnson emphasizes the importance of moral imagination, which involves envisioning the full range of possibilities in a given situation and considering the potential impact on all stakeholders. By applying moral imagination, leaders in workers' compensation can better understand the diverse circumstances of injured workers and advocate for fair treatment. Leaders also play a crucial role in promoting ethical decision-making models, such as the PLUS model, which stands for Policies, Legal, Universal, and Self. This model encourages leaders to consider whether their decisions align with organizational policies, legal standards, universal values, and ethical principles. Leaders must ensure that these frameworks are theoretical concepts and practical tools used in everyday decision-making. Using these frameworks helps ensure that decisions are made with integrity and empathy, promoting a just and equitable workers' compensation system.?
Critical Reflection and Analysis?
Bias regularly influences decision-making in the handling of workers' compensation claims. For instance, a claims adjuster might focus on minor inconsistencies in an injured worker's recounting of an accident, questioning the claim's legitimacy despite substantial evidence supporting the injury's severity. Often, claims adjusters must contact the injured worker and obtain a statement within 24 hours of the reported injury. This urgency does not consider the injured worker's state of mind or location at the time, such as being in an emergency room or still in shock. Similarly, employers often default to skepticism, influenced by high-profile workers' compensation fraud cases. This negativity bias skews their perception of genuine claims, even though 80% of claims have no issues and smoothly proceed through the system.?
Addressing these biases requires acknowledging their presence and actively working to mitigate their impact. This recognition is not a one-time effort but a continuous process that requires learning and self-awareness. Leaders must intervene when someone disparages an injured worker going through the process. The language and discussions about injured workers reinforce the need for empathy and fairness. We must remember that an injured employee has a name, a life, and a world beyond injury. Joe Smith did not miss his physical therapy appointment because he was faking his injury; the adjuster or third-party vendor scheduled his appointment when he was picking up his child, and he had no other option for parent pick-up. These experiences underscore the importance of continuous learning and self-awareness in promoting justice and fairness in workers' compensation and maintaining overall humanity throughout the process. This commitment to learning and self-awareness keeps us engaged in the process of change.?
Addressing Counterarguments?
Knowing right from wrong is only sometimes straightforward, especially in complex situations where biases are deeply ingrained. Many employers hold preconceived notions about their employees based on backgrounds, first impressions, and perceived work ethic. When an employee is injured, focus solely on their recovery and return to work, setting aside these opinions. Identifying and mitigating biases can be challenging, especially when employers with negative experiences in the workers' compensation system question moral reasoning.?
For instance, in cases where evidence is ambiguous, such as Joe Smith reporting a shoulder injury on a Monday despite coaching his daughter's softball team over the weekend, determining the right course of action requires careful deliberation and consultation with peers. Both facts and context are important: Joe can coach softball and still sustain a shoulder injury at work on Monday while lifting heavy materials. Helping employers understand that injured workers are not just their injuries but individuals with lives outside of work can provide valuable learning opportunities and improve ethical orientation.?
We must restore Joe to his pre-injury status, even if he is perceived as a poor employee who did not follow safety protocols. Ethical leadership requires treating all injured workers fairly without letting biases affect their treatment and recovery. Focusing on "back to work, back to life" and reinforcing the recovery process can discourage fraudsters, who are less likely to engage in a supportive environment. Consider where to focus your energy: proactively supporting the good or combating the bad. Emphasizing empathy and justice ensures a more humane and effective workers' compensation system.?
Moving Toward Action as a Leader?
As a leader, it is essential to implement strategies that mitigate bias and promote fairness. Proactive and easily consumable communication of expectations is crucial when someone is injured to ensure that employees and leadership understand their responsibilities. Regular training on unconscious bias for staff involved in workers' compensation claims is vital for raising awareness and reducing the influence of biases. Cultivating an awareness of our biases and recognizing their manifestations can significantly impact the care an injured worker receives. Promoting a culture of empathy, focusing on understanding and supporting injured workers, can lead to improved outcomes by addressing their needs proactively. Transparent processes that ensure equitable treatment of all claims are necessary to foster trust and justice within the system. These processes include breaking down communications into plain language for employees to understand, as statutory language can be confusing. Additionally, structured decision-making processes that emphasize fairness and equity are essential.?
The workers' compensation system must transition from a bias-driven approach to one rooted in empathy, compassion, and justice. By addressing unconscious biases and promoting fairness, we can create an environment where we treat injured workers with the dignity and respect they deserve." Leaders play a pivotal role in driving this change by leading by example, and it is imperative to take proactive steps to foster an ethical, supportive environment. This shift benefits the injured workers, enhances the effectiveness and credibility of the workers' compensation system, and leads to better outcomes for all stakeholders involved. Tomorrow can be better than it is today, and each of us has the power to make it so.?
Workers Injured in Road and Bridge Accidents Across the Country
Jupiter, FL (WorkersCompensation.com ) – A construction worker was injured after he fell from a highway bridge in Florida, one of many workers injured in road and bridge accidents this month.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue’s Special Operations and Battalion One unit said it was called to the Jupiter, Fla. US Highway 1 Bridge for a worker who had fallen off the bridge. The victim was rescued on Monday using a large on-scene crane to extract the worker.
Rescue teams prepared the worker to be transferred, then brought them up, over and out of the construction area before lowering him onto a waiting stretcher. The worker was then taken to the Palm Beach Trauma Center by airlift via Trauma Hawk.
"Our thoughts and well wishes are with the worker who fell last night while working on the US 1 Jupiter Bridge project as they receive care at a local trauma center," the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) wrote in a statement on the incident.
The agency said it remained focused on its workers’ health and safety, and thanked all of the agencies that participated in the rescue.
Also on Monday, a worker fell 60 feet off a bridge in Marysville, Washington. According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), two contractors were working under I-5 when the equipment they were in tipped over which sent one worker into the river below.
Just before 7 p.m., firefighters, and local police, responded to I-5 at milepost 198. The contractors had been working on a project for traffic improvements between Marine View Drive and state Route 529. The project includes a new peak-use shoulder lane for traffic, a new northbound ramp and a new southbound ramp.
Officials said when the bucket the two workers were in flipped, one worker was able to stay inside the bucket and had climbed onto land, while the other had fallen about 60 feet into the water below, officials with Everett Fire Department said. The worker who fell into the water swam to shore and was evaluated by medics. The worker was later transported to a local hospital for treatment.
WSDOT said it is investigating the incident to determine the cause. Traffic had been stopped while emergency responders assisted the workers and helped them to retrieve equipment, but resumed after the incident was resolved.
In Oklahoma, two Department of Corrections employees were involved in a traffic accident that left one dead and the other injured.
Officials said Cpl. Robert Sumner was working at the John Lilley Correctional Center in Boley. He was in a state van driving to guard a prisoner at OU Medical Center when he collided with another John Lilley employee on Highway 62 on July 14. A spokeswoman for the correctional center, Kay Thompson, said the incident was just an accident.
"This was a pure coincidence, freak accident,” said Thompson. “We still don’t know the cause, whether there was an animal involved or whatever happened, we just don’t know.”
Sumner was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other worker, Cpl. Andrew Freppon, was injured. The two man worked together and had graduated from ODOC training together in 2023.
ODOC Director Steven Harpe said the accident was hard to wrap one’s head around. The department said it was making chaplains available to John Lilley employees for counseling.
And in Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Transportation is calling for action after two workers have been killed in work zones and another has been seriously injured in the last year.
NDOT Director Vicki Kramer said all three of the crashes were the result of distracted driving.
“We went close to a decade without a Nebraska DOT worker hurt in a work zone,” she said. “To have three major incidents within a year is absolutely appalling.”
In June, Kramer said distracted driving and driving without a seat belt were leading causes of incidents on Nebraska roadways, and that her department would continue to work with legislators to protect transportation workers.
“We’ve got to do something,” Kramer said. “We’ll continue to work with our lawmakers so that they understand what the opportunities are in front of them and what some of those best practices across the country in terms of creating safer environments for driving.”