Making Workers' Comp Work: The Marine Corps Way

Friday, February 26, 2010 | 0

By Barbara Karkula

At the U.S. Marine Corps, we’ve developed a successful three-point approach to ensuring a continually-improving workers’ compensation system: Relationships, education and information.
 
Relationships are a critical building block in establishing a successful workers’ compensation program.  Work must be done to gain the trust of the players; many times, it requires asking the players how you, the program manager, can make the program better in their eyes.  It’s easier to get the buy-in when a personal relationship is established.  We believe face-to-face meetings are a key element of our program. We bring the players together as much as possible.  We include the Department of Labor in some of our meetings with our field commands and we bring in our field workers’ comp specialists to meet our adjusters at the third party administrators office. Sometimes, we’ve been surprised at what we have heard… and it’s for the better. We’ve learned you have to keep an open mind and don’t take criticism personally.
 
Education at all levels is also a key element.  As the program manager, you cannot be at all places at all times.  You need helping hands at all of your locations.  It is to your great advantage to ensure all the players have knowledge of not only the workers’ compensation laws and requirements, but also how they themselves can make a difference in the results of the program. Many times, upper management must be educated in order to get their support for the employees on the front lines that are doing the day-to-day work in the program.  When you start seeing results from your locations, remember to recognize and reward them to strengthen their ownership of the program.
 
Now that you’ve established relationships and educated the players, you need to give them information to enable them to continue to enhance their performance.  It’s also critical to provide your upper management with the numbers for their locations.  We developed a report that is sent to our Directors, CFO’s and Human Resources Officers that show performance numbers across all of our locations. Our communication ranges from numerous daily phone calls with our field commands and third-party administrator, to high level briefings to General Officers in the Marine Corps.   
 
Anyone can make a difference in their workers’ comp programs – you have to be willing to work hard, humble yourself and give the credit to others.  We’ve seen the results.  Numbers are down, active participation is up.  Issues are solved before they become “problems” (we’ve seen this particularly in our relationship with the Department of Labor (DOL).  We recently had a situation with one of the DOL adjusters who took it upon himself to negotiate a settlement without any settlement authority from the employer.  We were able to address our concerns to the district director, who is resolving the issue with the DOL adjuster.
 
The issues addressed here apply not only to the Marines but to all enterprises facing the challenge of implementing and managing successful workers’ compensation programs.  I will be presenting my ideas on these topics at the Making Workers’ Compensation Work Conference (www.makingworkerscompwork.com) March 11-12 in San Francisco.
 
Barbara Karkula is a keynote speaker at the upcoming Making Workers Comp Work Conference (March 11-12, San Francisco). She is the Program Manager for the U. S. Marine Corps Non-Appropriated Fund Workers’ Compensation Program, which program encompasses more than 12,000 employees in the Continental United States and Japan.