Takeaway: Risk and safety teams often work in parallel, but there are clear benefits to cross-team collaboration. The Cheesecake Factory and Corewell Health share how risk and safety teams both win when they work closely together.
The Cheesecake Factory and Corewell Health look like very different companies at a glance — one sells dessert; the other provides healthcare. But they share one key similarity: their risk and safety teams work closely together under the same department.
When risk and safety teams partner, it’s a win-win. Safety teams can tie the success of their initiatives to measurable financial results, which helps them win executive support. Risk teams can show the positive results of their safety programs to insurance companies and negotiate lower premiums. But unlike Cheesecake Factory and Corewell, many companies keep risk and safety siloed.
To learn how both groups can work together, we spoke with Cheesecake Factory’s Risk Services Manager Christian Iglesias and Corewell’s Employee Safety Team Lead Nicole Aldrich in our recent webinar with Origami “Better Together: How risk and safety professionals can collaborate more effectively.”
The Cheesecake Factory: Building a claims allocation program as a single risk-safety team
At The Cheesecake Factory, Iglesias works on a combined risk-safety team that oversees corporate and restaurant staff employees across 317 locations. The company also has separate environmental, health and safety (EHS) teams for their two main bakeries since these facilities have different risk exposures than the restaurants.
Working on the corporate side, Iglesias likes how risk and safety have leeway as a single team. Everyone in the group uses one risk management information system (RMIS) to manage general liability and workers comp claims, safety meetings, inspections, and more. With this combined risk-safety data, the team can show the impact of their initiatives and get buy-in from executives quickly.
Working as one team, the risk and safety professionals at The Cheesecake Factory created a mutually beneficial claims allocation program that gives restaurants credits for injury prevention and post-injury efforts, which managers can apply to reduce claims charges.
Here’s how it works: If a serious injury were to happen at one of the organization’s restaurants, the location would receive a $1,000 credit if they use a triage nurse at the time of injury. If the restaurant reports the claim within 24 hours, it receives a $100 to $600 credit if a preferred network provider is used.
Restaurants also receive credits for preventative activities. Safety meeting documentation equals a $500 credit, while slip resistant shoe compliance equals a $1,000 credit.
The program is a clear win for both risk and safety on the corporate and restaurant side. The credit system incentivizes safety at the restaurants, which translates directly to fewer incidents. With less claims, The Cheesecake Factory’s risk professionals benefit from a lower total cost of risk and reduced premiums.
Looking ahead, Iglesias would like to help the bakeries strengthen their risk and safety functions with the company’s RMIS. He’s confident that the bakeries would increase safety and reduce costs by tracking claims, inspections, injuries, and meetings in the RMIS—just like the restaurants and corporate teams.
Takeaway: Align on risk-safety objectives to make a big impact. When risk and safety collaborate, it doesn’t just help one team. The Cheesecake Factory’s claims allocation initiative shows that the two groups can work together to reduce claims, lower premiums, and promote a safety culture.
Corewell Health: Protecting 31,000 employees with SafetyPause
As Corewell’s Employee Safety lead, Aldrich says the company’s risk and safety teams collaborate well under the same umbrella.
That wasn’t the case back in 2020 when the company didn’t have the software to track safety events and concerns from employees. The company’s risk team couldn’t see what was happening on the front lines, and Aldrich and her team struggled to improve safety without clear event records.
Everything changed in October 2020 when Corewell implemented their RMIS. With a single software for tracking events and concerns, Aldrich and her team built the SafetyPause program — an initiative that keeps everyone at Corewell in the loop about safety events, including the risk team.
Under the program, Corewell employees share safety events and concerns in the company’s RMIS. Managers submit reports about the factors that contributed to safety events as well.
The risk team receives notifications when team members and managers submit this data. Using this information, the safety and risk teams can investigate safety event causes and work together to form risk mitigation action plans, which help lower Corewell’s total cost of risk. The risk and safety teams also brief executives in a joint session on safety events and present injury prevention programs based on their RMIS data.
Takeaway: Allow risk and safety teams to engage the RMIS platform. Risk and safety teams typically use different software programs that lack broad capabilities — and integration with each other. Corewell shows that a shared RMIS is one of the best ways to foster collaboration between risk and safety. The two groups can share data, send notifications, and minimize duplicate efforts using the platform.
3 steps to unite risk and safety
Uniting your risk and safety teams may not be as simple as it sounds. Here are tips for breaking down silos and easing into risk-safety collaboration:
- Meet regularly. Set up regular calls between risk and safety so the two groups can collaborate freely on each other’s pain points, work together on safety and risk programs and more.
- Set reasonable goals. Risk and safety teams will have their unique internal commitments, goals and regulatory requirements. Factor in these responsibilities when setting objectives for joint programs to keep the goals realistic.
- Engage technology. Implement a shared RMIS so both teams can send notifications and track the data they need. A RMIS will enable reports and more to be generated for C-suite review and strategic planning.
For further guidance on how a RMIS can help your organization, regardless of size, schedule an inquiry call with Redhand Advisors.