Celebrating Your Safety

Each year, thousands of construction workers in Washington suffer work-related injuries. Safety-oriented trainings and policies are crucial to keeping employees safe, which in turn makes them feel valued and supported at work. When builders adopt practices that encourage and enforce a safe workplace, everyone wins.

For employers, the advantage of a healthy and happy team is obvious, but with GRIP, the benefits go even farther.

The first way that safety benefits GRIP participants is the Retro refund payout each June. The safer the pool of GRIP participants over the past years, the higher the reimbursement will be for everyone.

Thanks in part to the tools GRIP provides to its participants to help them improve safety and claims management, GRIP has never had a negative group refund. Since GRIP started in 2010, the average refund rate on participants’ Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) premiums has been 32.6%.

“Each year, companies that go above and beyond to promote employee safety receive a certificate recognizing their performance.”

A second way GRIP participants can benefit from prioritizing safety is through GRIP’s safety recognition program. Each year, companies that go above and beyond to promote employee safety receive a certificate recognizing their performance. Additionally, the safest company in each of three size brackets (based on total employee hours worked) receives the prestigious GRIP on Safety Excellence Award.

On top of the inherent advantages of a safe workplace like decreased employee injuries and lost workdays and reduced regulatory compliance exposure, the certificates and GRIP on Safety Excellence Awards add formal recognition for safety excellence.

Current GRIP members must opt into the program via this application form provided by GRIP program administrators ERNwest. Winners will be finalized after applications are reviewed and frontrunners receive onsite visits. Companies’ safety performance is evaluated and scored on a three-tier scale—bronze, silver, and gold.

Reaching higher tiers requires meeting additional criteria to qualify. The gold level requires that candidates have no fatalities or in-patient hospitalizations companywide during the application period or during the previous three years along with several other high standards. All companies who achieve bronze level or higher will be honored at an in-person ceremony at the end of the year

While safety is worth striving for in itself, GRIP’s safety recognition program sweetens the deal.