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A quarterly publication of the Risk Management Division
1/12/2018 3:30:55 PM
By: Gary Westman, Workers' Compensation Program Manager
Voluntary recreational and social activities are not considered to be within the course and scope of employment for workers’ compensation purposes, unless the employer asks or assigns employees to participate.
Potential workers’ compensation coverage can also arise when employers treat employees differently depending on whether the employees attend the activity. If employees are told that they will be paid only if they attend the activity, then the activity is no longer considered voluntary. If employees are told that they can either attend the event and be paid or take vacation time if they do not attend the activity, the activity is also no longer considered to be voluntary. To be a voluntary recreational or social activity, employees must truly have the option to exercise their individual “free will” in deciding to attend the activity.
The takeaway from this is to be thoughtful about how recreational and social activities are communicated to employees. To limit potential workers’ compensation liability, it is best to communicate and promote these activities as voluntary.
If you have questions, please contact Gary Westman at 651-201-3030 or gary.westman@state.mn.us.
By: Kemal Munn, State Safety Coordinator
BackgroundMnSAFE, Governor Dayton’s statewide injury reduction initiative, has been widely successful, reducing injuries by over 27 percent since it began in early fiscal year 2012.
In order to continue the success of MnSAFE, the Department of Administration’s Risk Management Division, with support of the Interagency Safety and Health Committee (IASHC), launched an ambitious five-year project to quantitatively measure the safety perceptions of the state’s workforce.
Studies indicate organizations that improve their safety culture through increased safety perception scores can expect to experience fewer workplace injuries.
Data collection began in April 2017, and was completed within the fiscal year. The survey will be administered again in fiscal years 2019 and 2021.
Our 2017 statewide safety perception score is 3.82. To put that in perspective, a score of 4.0 suggests a favorable safety culture where the majority of employees agree or strongly agree with the survey statements about safety. This baseline data suggests there is room for improvement.
The survey’s 45 questions are organized into seven cultural indicators. Each cultural indicator is made up of five to seven questions.
The following table highlights our cultural indicator scores.
| Employee Safety Involvement | Safe Work Environment | Workplace Safety Norms | Safety Supervision | Organizational Safety Leadership | Safety Training & Development | Job Satisfaction | Aggregate Average Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.75 | 3.92 | 3.98 | 3.80 | 3.76 | 3.76 | 3.81 | 3.82 |
The table below highlights the five questions with the highest average scores, which represents our safety culture strengths.
| Question | Average Score | Cultural Indicator |
|---|---|---|
| I am comfortable raising safety issues | 4.27 | Employee Safety Involvement |
| I enjoy my work responsibilities and tasks | 4.21 | Job Satisfaction |
| The equipment and tools I use are safe | 4.17 | Safe Work Environment |
| Our workplace is free from drugs and alcohol | 4.15 | Workplace Safety Norms |
| It is OK to remind or encourage people to work safely | 4.12 | Workplace Safety Norms |
In order to improve our safety culture, agencies have been asked to:
Risk Management is working with the IASHC to address enterprise-wide gaps and weaknesses. Risk Management will also be working with other enterprise groups (e.g., Human Resources, Labor Relations) to develop solutions to address additional issues identified in the survey.
Additional information will be provided periodically to keep you updated on our progress. The goal is to improve the statewide perception of workplace safety, which in turn is expected to reduce injuries.
For more information about the employee safety perception survey, please contact Kemal Munn at 651-201-3011 or kemal.munn@state.mn.us.
As strange as it may seem, catastrophes in other parts of the country or even on the other side of the world can have an impact on the Risk Management Fund (RMF) because of the RMF’s reliance on reinsurance.
So that the RMF can pay catastrophic property losses, reinsurance is purchased to fund individual losses in excess of $1 million, as well as an accumulation of multiple types of losses in any given year.
Because reinsurers operate globally to diversify their own risks, they are greatly affected by catastrophic events that occur worldwide. The financial impact of these catastrophes can trickle down to the state.
Due to several backstops already in place, as well as insurance market conditions, the impact of recent catastrophic events on the RMF over the next several years is not expected to be significant:
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