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   * Sector Focus
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MANAGING A MERGER AND A PANDEMIC IS NO EASY FEAT. HERE’S HOW WASTE MANAGEMENT’S
JEFF BENNETT TACKLED IT ALL

Waste Management’s Jeff Bennett worked to make sure employee health was a
priority through both COVID-19 and a major acquisition.
By: Courtney DuChene | September 2, 2021
Topics: Profiles | Public Sector | Risk All Stars | Risk Management | September
2021 Issue | Workers' Comp | Workers' Comp Forum



For many, it’s hard to forget the day in March 2020 when COVID-19 disrupted
their lives.

Millions of workers were sent home to do their jobs remotely as companies and
governments sought to protect them from the pandemic.

While remote work was a great solution to help people social distance, not every
company could run all of their operations from home.

Waste Management, a company that provides waste collection services for
municipal, industrial, residential and commercial customers in 48 states,
Washington D.C. and Canada, knew its employees would have to keep reporting to
work every day. Its workers had to keep picking up trash, global pandemic or
not.

And it was up to Jeff Bennett, the company’s assistant treasurer and senior
director of risk, to figure out how to keep the company running and keep workers
safe while community and regulatory standards shifted.

“Each location is going to have their own unique set of challenges,” Bennett
said. “I fully recognize the strength of the team I have here at Waste
Management. They’re exceedingly great at the jobs they do.”

As if that wasn’t enough of a hurdle, the company closed the largest waste
acquisition in the past decade when it bought Advanced Disposal Systems for $5
billion during this same time.

The company had an influx of new workers, and Bennett had to create a new
workers’ compensation program for them during an exceedingly challenging time.

“Waste Management has been in the unique position of having to operate as
‘business as usual’ while circumstances nation — if not worldwide — have been
anything but,” said Janet Hill, assistant vice president of client services at
Gallagher Bassett.

“Jeff is an exemplary leader in that he encourages autonomy and creativity,
while providing support and guidance, when needed.”

When faced with the challenge, Bennett immediately got to work. He leaned on his
background in treasury and finance and worked with Gallagher Bassett, the
company’s TPA, to create models that provided insight into variables that drive
claim frequency and severity, allowing the company to make more informed
operational and safety-based decisions.



He also worked to develop a transitional return-to-work program, which helps
employees get back to work while still making progress towards healing.

The goal is not for them to work through the injury, but rather to make a full
recovery while still completing their jobs, in a similar way to how athletes
begin to slowly work out again after injury.

“They don’t jump right back in when they think they’re ready. They rehab, they
work their way back up to where they are,” Bennett said.

The program employs a clinical model, with occupational health managers who are
dedicated to the program. As a result, legacy Advanced Disposal Systems saw a
40% reduction in its lost work days. &

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every year, Risk & Insurance selects deserving candidates to become Risk All
Stars. These are risk managers who, through their perseverance, passion and
creativity, make a big difference to the stability of their organizations.

See all the 2021 Risk All Star Winners here.

Courtney DuChene is an associate editor at Risk & Insurance. She can be reached
at duchene@theinstitutes.org.





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SPONSORED CONTENT BY CONCENTRA



BRINGING CARE TO THE EMPLOYER’S DOORSTEP: HOW THE PANDEMIC CHANGED THE GAME FOR
MOBILE AND ON-SITE HEALTH CARE

Concentra is filling an increasingly important need in the market by providing
expanded mobile and on-site health care support to employers large and small.
By: Concentra | May 2, 2022

It’s a matter of record that the COVID-19 pandemic changed not only the way we
work but also the way in which employers support their talent base. Maintaining
the physical and mental health of our workers is more of a priority than ever
before due to evolving market and cultural changes.

Mike Rhine, chief operating officer for Concentra® Onsites, said this renewed
focus on employee health is creating a robust market for episodic health care
support and mobile services to effectively meet the needs of employers and their
employees.

The COVID-19 pandemic drove many companies to arrange on-site testing services
and gave employers a taste of the benefits they could reap by having Concentra
provide quality staff and vital services at their locations. As a result,
employers are now looking to see what else they can do to increase savings and
productivity gains — while also reinforcing their commitment to workforce health
with their employees.

“I think a lot of larger employers that previously didn’t have experience with
episodic services saw the true benefits for the first time during the pandemic,”
Rhine said.

Rhine said that process might have started with a service provider coming in and
providing symptom screening at the beginning of the pandemic. That then evolved
into testing programs and providing vaccinations and continued with providing
vaccination boosters.

While some companies attempted to internalize those services, Rhine said that
they found it was more efficient to partner with a provider like Concentra. He
is seeing evidence of a robust trend in that direction.

“We thought there would be some drop in this type of offering, but now employers
are looking beyond COVID-19 and thinking about what other services can they
bring into their facilities,” he said. “We have seen that they’re primarily
looking for two types of onsite services.”

“There are episodic onsite services where you arrange for us [Concentra] to come
and go as there is a need, maybe quarterly. There are also permanent onsite
clinics. We’re seeing growth in both,” he added.

“In addition to the benefits I mentioned, folks have been spending so much time
on COVID-19 that a lot of employers are behind on their compliance testing when
it comes to the audiometric testing, surveillance, blood work, and other health
services.”

Mike Rhine, Chief Operating Officer for Concentra® Onsites

“Due to the labor shortages many companies are experiencing, employers are now
looking at what services they can bring into their facilities to save time and
support productivity,” Rhine said.

With so many employees pressed for time and already under stress, any service
offered at their place of employment that can save time — including time spent
on the road to and from appointments — will be embraced and help drive employee
engagement.

“It’s a productivity saver for employers to not have employees leaving their
place of work for any type of testing or services they might need – outside,
say, an injury where an employee needs to physically go see a physician and have
an X-ray,” Rhine said.

Employers have been exploring everything from episodic care, such as quarterly
surveillance exams and vaccinations, to full-service on-site clinics that
provide occupational, urgent, and primary health care. On-site nurse and
athletic trainer programs for injury prevention, triage, and first aid have also
seen an increase. No matter what services and mode of service delivery an
employer chooses, there is the added benefit of maintaining a culture of health
and wellness.

“We’ve created a department focused on episodic and mobile services and we’ve
added it to our onsite team assigned to permanent clinics for large employers.
That gives us an entire team that spends their days – and sometimes evenings —
thinking about how we’re going to solve our clients’ episodic needs,” Rhine
added.

“That may mean bringing staffing agency personnel on site to handle a short-term
need for our clients, or even engaging a mobile unit partner to go on site for a
large hiring event or quarterly compliance testing,” he said.

Sectors that are utilizing health care support services include manufacturing,
construction, and perhaps surprisingly, health care.

Health care institutions are experiencing high levels of employee burnout and
resignations, Rhine said, and in turn need their own health care support.

“Some health care systems are so stressed that their employee health department
can’t keep up, and they’re needing assistance,” Rhine said.

Rhine added that in construction, a drive-up health support service can provide
crucial safety and health monitoring and support.


COMPANIES OF A CERTAIN SIZE

Concentra can customize its on-site and episodic services for any company. The
company closely collaborates with its clients to fully understand their
workforce health needs and develop the most effective on-site health program.

For example, Concentra recommends episodic and mobile services for companies
with a minimum of around 100 employees, Rhine said.

“When you’re at 100 employees or more, that’s usually when it makes sense,
especially if you are involved in manufacturing.”

Rhine said an example of a good fit for episodic and mobile services would be an
electric vehicle (EV) battery plant. Employees in those plants need to be
monitored for possible exposures and to make sure their respirators are fitted
properly.

A fully equipped and staffed on-site clinic might make more sense for employers
with 500 or more employees, Rhine said.


PRE- AND POST-EMPLOYMENT TESTING

Yet another area where on-site and mobile health care support services are
needed is in pre- and post-employment offer testing. Concentra can staff or
utilize a mobile unit to support large hiring events to handle all pre-hire
medical and fitness testing. This saves time for employee and employer by
limiting the number of providers used and having to go into the community for
these services.

Large organizations that need to rapidly onboard dozens of workers can partner
with Concentra to do so safely.

“We now do hiring events where folks show up on a Saturday and we go through 200
plus physicals and take care of everything the employer needs to hire those
folks that same day,” Rhine said.

On-site clinicians can support employers in their efforts to recruit and retain
workers. An on-site athletic trainer can test a prospective employee’s physical
capability to perform the job they’re applying for – saving a company time and
money, not to mention reducing future workers’ compensation risks.

For example, an individual may apply for a warehouse position that requires them
to repeatedly lift 50 pounds or more. When the candidate is tested by the
on-site athletic trainer, it’s found that they aren’t quite at the fitness level
they need to be to safely perform the job.

The on-site athletic trainer can provide the physical conditioning support the
candidate needs to allow the employer to hire them, provided that Concentra and
the employer can support the employee’s progression into their new role as they
train for the job and become acclimated to it.

“If they don’t pass, maybe the candidate is spending a half hour with the
athletic trainer pre-shift and then rotating into the eventual job they’re going
to be in,” Rhine said.

“It’s a way to improve an employee’s physical health and physical capacity,
while also giving them job-specific coaching prior to performing a new role full
time,” he added.

According to Rhine, this approach to accommodating employee fitness levels has
increased in frequency as employers struggle with labor shortages.

“This was not really prevalent two years ago,” he said.

At the time of the ‘Great Resignation,’ when employee loyalty has never been
more tenuous, Concentra is providing a service that not only saves valuable
human and economic resources, but also helps employers demonstrate their
commitment to employees.

Such concepts were always best practices, but at this moment in time, they are
becoming much more urgent considerations for employers.

To learn more, visit:
https://www.concentra.com/onsite-clinics/onsite-healthcare-models/.





This article was produced by the R&I Brand Studio, a unit of the advertising
department of Risk & Insurance, in collaboration with Concentra. The editorial
staff of Risk & Insurance had no role in its preparation.







Concentra® is America’s leading provider of occupational medicine, delivering
work-related injury care, physical therapy, and workforce health services from
nearly 520 Concentra medical centers and more than 150 onsite clinics at
employer locations nationwide.







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