Station Duties Injuries & Lost Time

In our last blog entry we presented information on how many injuries were occurring during Station Duties.  This week we’re going to take a look how these injuries lead to lost time within your departments.

Check out the severity of the Station Duties injuries reported between Jan. 31, 2011 and Jan. 31, 2012:

Severity of Injuries - Station Duties - click to enlarge

69 percent of the reported injuries were minor. Departments did not lose employee time when these occurred.  The remaining 32 percent of the reported injuries were more serious and cost the reporting departments a great deal in wages (ex: OT), productivity losses, medical expenses, and administrative expenses.

Check out the number of departments affected by lost time injuries:

# of  days missed	1-30	31-90	90+	Not yet returned to work
# of departments affected	115	29	15	30

While the majority of the departments have their employees returning to full duties within 30 days, there are still a significant number of departments with additional lost work time.  Looking at these numbers, you can see that there are many avoidable injuries occurring during station duties, and that they can cost departments a great deal of lost time.  Emphasizing the importance of being mindful, careful, and taking your time during your station duties – and avoiding injuries in the process - is an easy way to save money for your department. 

Need more information on the cost of injuries?
Our blog posts in April will focus on more details surrounding the cost of all injuries, and how you can use the trends we see to determine how injuries can affect your budget.  Until then, if you have any questions regarding our lost time data, or would like any other information on these topics, please contact our Injury Reporting staff directly.

 
Do you know how many days of work your employees are missing due to injury?

Have you considered how this is impacting your budget?

Is this information that your ESD Board or City Council would find interesting in order to help you with your budget?