Strengthen Your Safety Net: Kitchen Safety Is No Accident (Restaurants USA, February 1997)

February 1997 issue

Strengthen Your Safety Net: Kitchen Safety Is No Accident

Restaurants USA magazine's final issue was published in September 2002 but these archived articles remain available for our readers' convenience.

Restaurants USA, February 1997

Restaurateurs who implement comprehensive safety-training programs can help keep themselves and their employees out of harm's way
By Jenny Hedden

It's not just nervous restaurant novices that "slip up" on safety — often with painful results. Celebrated chef Georges Perrier knows that only too well. Perrier, chef/owner of Philadelphia's Le Bec-Fin, one of the world's leading French restaurants, returned to work last April after more than six months of recuperation and rehabilitation following a serious kitchen injury.

In late 1995, Perrier sliced off the tips of four fingers on his right hand while changing a blade on a food processor. It took four hours of surgery to repair the damage. And although the operation was successful, the accident has forced Perrier to curtail his work schedule, because his hand frequently becomes stiff and forces him to stop preparing food.

Accident-prone atmosphere

Perrier's accident is a graphic example of the dangers that can lurk in a foodservice workplace. In the Department of Labor's latest Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that for 1994 (the latest year for which figures are available) eating-and-drinking places experienced 7.7 nonfatal on-the-job injuries a year per 100 full-time employees. The all-industry average was 8.4 per 100 employees.

Slips and falls, strains and sprains, cuts and lacerations, and burns are the four leading categories of kitchen injuries. In a detailed analysis of injury causes, the 1994 BLS survey documents that slips and falls accounted for 34 percent of all restaurant-worker-injury cases. Workers' "exposure to harmful substances or environment" caused 15 percent of the injuries. Overexertion in lifting contributed to 10 percent of injuries. Floors, walkways and ground surfaces were associated with 28 percent of restaurant injuries in 1994, according to the study.

An overwhelming number of those injuries occur in one place — the kitchen.

"In our operation, the most common type of injury is burns. The second most serious injury we have is slips and falls," says Nancy Smith, director of risk management for Lexington, Kentucky-based Long John Silver's and a member of the Risk and Safety Managers Executive Study Group, an independent organization sanctioned by the National Restaurant Association.

Accidents waiting to happen

An accident is always waiting to happen. It only needs an opportunity — and there are plenty of those in a typical restaurant kitchen: slippery floors, knives and other sharp tools, hot surfaces, heavy pieces of movable equipment, awkward food packages, and congested quarters. Add to those dangers the flurry of activity during a lunch or dinnertime rush, and an accident can be just one step away.

"We're dealing with a very fast-paced industry where customer service — in both the quality of food and the quickness of service — is often the bottom line," says John Marcello, technical-education manager at The Educational Foundation of the National Restaurant Association. "During the peak lunch and dinner hours, things are moving very quickly, so an employee's focus may get diverted. That's why it is important to constantly reinforce good safety techniques."

Marcello emphasizes that taking even a little bit of extra time to do something as simple as removing a delivery box from the middle of an aisle can prevent a costly accident, and such actions don't necessarily cause service slowdowns.

Smith agrees that the need for speed often translates into carelessness and needless injury. "We see a lot of claims from people who ignored proper procedure to get food to the guest as quickly as possible," she says. A typical scenario might involve a worker who overloads a fry basket, submerges the fish in the fryer, then lifts the basket to shake off the excess oil and gets splashed by the hot liquid when a piece of fish falls back into the fryer. "If the employee had been willing to make two passes through the fryer, he wouldn't have been burned," she explains.

Recovery time

Kitchen accidents can cause pain to more than just the injured employee, and the repercussions can be felt long after the injury has healed. According to the BLS survey, injured servers, kitchen workers and food-prep workers all missed approximately five days of work following an accident — which can add up to an unhealthy bill for operators.

Rich Sarnie, former corporate safety manager for the 725-unit Friendly Ice Cream Corp., based in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, maintains that slips and falls are the number–one injury to employees in the restaurant industry — and the most costly. Industry statistics bear out Sarnie's statement: In terms of cost, experts estimate that slips and falls resulting in loss of work cost restaurant companies an estimated $3,000 per incident. However, that cost can quickly multiply when indirect costs of the accident are added. Sarnie estimates that at the time of each incident, for every $1 spent on an injury, restaurant operators lose another $4 in indirect costs, which include hiring and training a new employee, overtime, and accident investigation. Smith calculates that for Long John Silver's 963 company-owned restaurants, which are open for only two dayparts, losses from slip-and-fall injuries alone have cost the restaurant chain nearly a million dollars a year in the past.

One longer-lasting effect of kitchen injuries is their impact on the restaurateur's workers'-compensation premiums. According to Chicago-based CNA Insurance Companies, a commercial insurer that designs customized risk-management programs for high-volume restaurants with losses of $1 million or more per year, the national average for workers'-compensation premiums in the restaurant industry is $7 per $100 of payroll. "If a business has a poor safety record, then the premium will be increased based on that," says Judy Gillam, assistant vice president and actuary for the National Council on Compensation Insurance, a Boca Raton, Florida-based association that conducts ratemaking, research and statistical programs for workers'-compensation insurance. "If a business has a good safety record, then the premium may be reduced."

For Mason Steinberg, owner/operator of The Olde Mill BBQ Restaurants in Omaha, Nebraska, skyrocketing premiums to cover his 24 employees prompted him to consider shuttering his barbecue restaurant. In 1994, after two costly back-to-back workers'-compensation claims, Steinberg's rates went from $3.43 per $100 of payroll to $5.54 per $100. The average rate for a brand-new business in 1994 was $2.20 per $100, according to Steinberg.

An ounce of prevention

Some operators accept injury losses as the price of doing business; others refuse to tolerate any safety infractions. All want to safeguard their employees against injuries. To do that, companies like Friendly's and Long John Silver's and some independent operators are adopting innovative preventive measures that include a cost-sharing program to help employees buy slip-resistant safety shoes, a loss-allocation program that requires unit managers to absorb injury-related costs and interactive multimedia safety training.

Fed up with tossing his money down a black hole, Steinberg asked his insurance carrier to send a safety manager to his restaurant to perform an inspection and make suggestions. "I wanted to see what I could do to make my workplace safer," he says. The safety manager made three recommendations that Steinberg implemented immediately: Every employee who works in the kitchen must wear back support, every employee who uses a knife or slicer must wear cut-resistant gloves, and slip-resistant mats must be installed in two areas of the kitchen. Steinberg also initiated safety discussions at monthly employee meetings. "I feel that both the employee and the employer should try to help one another in keeping injuries down," he says.

Friendly's is on a crusade to eliminate all employee injuries. And it just might do it with an aggressive safety program in place at the restaurant chain that's keeping employees on their toes — safely.

Two years ago, Friendly's implemented a cost-sharing program to help employees purchase slip-resistant safety shoes. The investment paid off by reducing slip-and-fall injuries by 30 percent in its first year. Company officials added the shoe program to its accident-prevention arsenal after trying other methods to reduce slip-and-fall injuries. Friendly's had already tried slip-resistant mats, experimented with various cleaning products and employee training, but still slip-and-fall injuries remained troublesome. "We needed a new system," says Sarnie. "One of the things we looked at was employee footwear. Was it appropriate? We found out that, no, it wasn't."

After selecting a vendor, Friendly's began a payroll-deduction co-payment plan in March 1994. Every quarter, each of its 725 restaurants is sent a poster and payroll-deduction forms. The poster displays 11 shoe styles, which range in price from $18.98 to $44.98, and a toll-free number for ordering. The company contributes $10 toward shoes for its supervisors, for whom the program is mandatory, and the balance is deducted over four paychecks. While it is mandatory that employees wear slip-resistant shoes, they do not have to purchase them through Friendly's.

"Besides slip-resistance, we wanted to make sure we could offer the best styles, ease of ordering and painless payroll deduction, so the employee is more apt to get the shoes," says Sarnie. In 1995, the first full year of the program, cuts replaced slips and falls as the number-one cause of injury and the company saved an estimated $750,000. "The shoe program has definitely had an impact, and our goal is to get every employee into a pair of slip-resistant shoes," says Sarnie.

The shoe campaign isn't the only safety program Friendly's has launched to reduce employee injuries, however. "Slip-resistant shoes aren't the whole answer. You still have to execute your other safety systems at 100 percent," says Sarnie. The company charges back $750 to its restaurants for each medical-only accident. Lost-time accidents result in a $5,000 charge-back, although restaurants may be credited $2,500 if the employee returns within 30 days. Friendly's has also established a safety-incentive program that involves the employees. Every restaurant that satisfies three safety goals each month receives a "safety bucks certificate," which entitles the restaurant to a noncash certificate for up to $75. To receive the certificate, the restaurant must have had no chargeable accidents in which a bill was incurred, completed a safety inspection, and submitted safety-meeting documentation that includes minutes and signatures. Awards have included pizza parties, raffles and movie tickets. "I believe all injuries are preventable, so we put in place a very aggressive safety program," says Sarnie. "Safety just makes good business sense."

Nancy Smith believes that if managers are concerned about their guests, they should be equally concerned about their employees and the safety of the work environment. That's why she insists that injuries should be aberrations, and she's striving to further reduce lost-time injuries and workers'-compensation claims at Long John Silver's. "In fiscal year 1995, 550 of our 963 restaurants had one or fewer workers'-comp claims," says Smith. Although she is pleased with what she calls "an exemplary safety record," she realizes there is room for improvement. "I think if 550 restaurants out of 963 can do that, the rest of them ought to be able to as well," she says.

Long John Silver's safety program has focused on the role of proper footwear, vigilant housekeeping and equipment maintenance in preventing injuries. For fiscal year 1997, Smith says the company will be implementing a more coordinated safety program that will directly attack areas she feels need special attention, such as back strains. Each quarter will focus on preventing a different type of injury by providing equipment and training.

The seafood chain is also revising its charge-back program to make managers more accountable for accident losses and intends to increase the bonus to stores that are injury-free. "We have tried to emphasize the safety aspects of every task that we do, but people get hurt on the job," says Smith. "The goal should be to establish standards that allow a restaurant to make the kitchen as safe as possible and make the managers of those units accountable."

Safety is as safety does

"Training is the cornerstone of any safety program," says John Marcello of the Educational Foundation. If that training amounts to little more than plunking down your employees in front of a television monitor and asking them to watch 14 hours of videos, you could be asking for trouble.

However, the realities of restaurant work — high turnover and strict time constraints — sometimes mean that dollars and time for training are tight. A work force that is largely young and inexperienced compounds the problem. "Many of the individuals who are coming to work for a foodservice operation are coming to work for the first time," says Marcello. "So not only are managers teaching employees the fundamentals of kitchen and food safety and how to make a recipe item, often they are teaching them how to work, and employees can only receive so much information and training at one time. Managers need to integrate job safety into an employee's job responsibilities so it is not looked at as an additional [task]."

At a minimum, Smith and Marcello agree that training needs to cover safety procedures and safety equipment and the use of that equipment. There needs to be follow-up supervision to make sure employees are following procedures and using the equipment correctly. Finally, there needs to be an effort to get the employees involved in improving safety procedures.

"You really need a flexible approach to training," says Marcello. "You have to present the information in a variety of ways — through written material, through videos, through demonstrations. Your training needs to be interactive." Marcello also notes that the information should be delivered in 10- or 15-minute morsels and that it should be subject-specific. He suggests focusing on cuts at one training session and maybe burns at another.

Marcello predicts that "interactive technology such as CD-ROM is the wave of the future. Managers could call up the training program, the program would document what training the employee has had, and the program would test the employee's understanding of the subject matter," says Marcello.

Even though much of the restaurant industry isn't yet prepared to serve up training in a CD-ROM format, the foundation is betting that it will be the wave of the future and has already developed a food-safety training program on CD-ROM. In October, the foundation, along with four major chain restaurants, began a yearlong study to evaluate the effectiveness of training in reducing the number of workplace accidents and to learn more about the most effective way to deliver safety training to front-line employees.

"We can say safety is common sense, but it's behavior," says Marcello. "Make sure your employees know they're an integral part of your program. After all, they're the ones responsible for doing a task."

Get the Facts on Fraud — It's No Accident
Workers’-compensation fraud costs companies millions of dollars a year, according to Peter Kilgore, vice president and general counsel for the National Restaurant Association. Kilgore suggests taking these steps to reduce the possibility of an employee filing a fraudulent claim.

Investigate all accidents.

Communicate with your insurance carrier after an accident.

Remind employees that fraud costs everybody. The number of claims made against a restaurant each year impacts the company’s insurance premium.

The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), a Boca Raton, Florida–based association that conducts ratemaking, research and statistical programs for workers’-compensation insurance, publishes information to help employers recognize workers’-comp fraud and understand the types of fraud committed. NCCI also publishes Safe Workplace magazine, which promotes safety in the workplace. To obtain more information about NCCI’s resources, call its customer-service department at (800) 622-4123.

National Restaurant Association members who have questions concerning workers’ compensation or other legal issues can contact the Association’s legal department at (800) 424-5156, ext. 5910.

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Jenny Hedden is a staff writer for the National Restaurant Association.