Beverage Distributors lower Workman’s Compensation Costs by Licensing PSR’s Injury Reduction Training Program

Beverage Distributors lower Workman’s Compensation Costs by Licensing PSR’s Injury Reduction Training Program ( Save as .pdf )

Published : January 14, 2010 | Author : psrsafety
Category : Shipping | Total Views : 91 | Unrated

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PSR® Corporation, is now licensing its injury reduction training to freight beverage distribution companies. For more than 25 years now, PSR® Corporation has helped businesses and public agencies reduce their workman’s compensation and insurance costs. By licensing its technologies, beverage distributors are now able to bring injury reduction training in house on a continuous basis, allowing them to reach a greater proportion of their workforce and thus achieve cost savings on a much larger scale.
Beverage delivery drivers deliver approximately 150-550 boxes, beverage containers, cases, spring water bottles and/or kegs in the course of a work day. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has identified beverage delivery truck drivers as an occupational group that has reported back injury incidence rates substantially higher than in the manufacturing sector. 95% of freight beverage route drivers state they have back related pain. Over 70% state that they have shoulder related pain. Shoulder and back injury losses are difficult, if at all possible, to fully recover from.
The cost to beverage distributors collectively runs in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually when all factors have been included: Workman’s Compensation, insurance claims, lost time and productivity, employee replacement, litigation, and regulatory costs. Furthermore, as back and shoulder injuries tend not to heal as quickly, “insurance related carrying costs” tend to be long term.

The continued rise in insurance and medical costs, coupled with the U.S. administration’s inclination to impose new OSHA regulations, has created a renewed urgency by the freight beverage industry to reduce on-the-job injuries. As such, many beverage distributors have taken a pro-active approach to reduce the number and severity of injuries suffered by their delivery drivers.

But many ergonomic programs do not address the specific needs of beverage delivery drivers. Most current programs tend to be generic versions that can be applied to any industry. Moreover, these programs are limited to demonstrations, either live or through slide presentations without any opportunities for the driver to feel the correct action. In other words, most programs do not offer hands on training that is specifically designed for the delivery driver’s daily work environment.
In contrast, PSR®’s programs are designed for specific industry segments and provide one on one hands-on training, allowing the workers to experience the correct body motions first hand using the items they come in contact with every day. Drivers who deliver water bottles will use lifting techniques using water cooler bottles, whereas beer delivery drivers would train with beer kegs and soft drink delivery drivers with crates. The goal is to create industrial athletes. Like a baseball pitcher who instinctively knows how to react to an oncoming ball, the delivery driver will learn how to position his body correctly according to the load he is carrying.

What makes PSR®’s programs unique is that they can now be licensed by beverage distribution companies and brought in-house. Within the client company, PSR will train a group of “facilitators”, who then in turn offer the training to the company’s employees. The advantage is that companies can make the training available to their employees any time they need and to as many employees as desired. There is no longer a need to call in an outside company to deliver training on a single date to a limited group of employees.

With PSR®’s licensing program, licensee companies can train their employees at any time they wish. So, new employees can be trained immediately upon hire, rather than waiting for months and running the risk of incurring an injury in the mean time. For more information about PSR® Corporation and its programs, visit www.psrsafety.com

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