By Dr. Michael Hamby, CEO, Claims Eval
In last week’s article, I highlighted some helpful working definitions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (commonly referred to as DEI, DE&I, and DEIB). I wrote about how to make DEI a part of your company’s structural integrity, meaning a foundational part of your company culture. DEI is being over utilized as a marketing tactic but underutilized in corporate practices. As a result, we’re seeing lots of performative DEI messaging without commensurate actionable goals or data to back it up.
In this installment, I’ll be looking more closely at how inclusive health and safety measures in the workplace are an important part of DEI strategy, specifically in how it relates to workers’ comp. Then we’ll shift the perspective outside the walls of our immediate organizations to look at how partnerships with suppliers—whether they be service or physical goods providers—can be an impactful piece of your DEI strategy.
DEI in the Context of Workplace Health & Safety
As it pertains to the workers’ comp world, companies would not only benefit from DEI because of the usual reasons (increased diversity of perspectives, better company-wide performance, and higher employee satisfaction), but increased employee safety and trust too. As we know, these two factors are integral components of workers’ comp cases. When employees are adequately prepared to take relevant safety precautions there is less prevalence of workers’ comp claims. But accidents are bound to happen sometimes, so when they do, you want to make sure your employees trust that you care about their well-being. This will mitigate the number of cases that go to litigation.
As an example for exploring these concepts, let’s consider LEP (Limited English Proficiency) workers and safety precautions. Within a workplace, safety information is disseminated in a number of ways—videos, pamphlets, verbal instruction, etc. Increasing workplace safety comprehension through more inclusive instruction is two-fold. Organizations can:
- Increase the number of methods used to share safety information: Not everyone is a good auditory learner. Share information via video, physical demonstration, hands-on supervised training, etc.
- Include translated text alternatives and subtitles on videos where relevant: These easy additions can greatly increase the safety comprehension for employees who might have working English proficiency, but could miss key information depending on the format.
An important piece of inclusive practices is considering barriers to the ideal employee experience. As we covered last week, not everyone is coming to the table with the same experiences or baseline knowledge. Consider the demographic and experiences of your team and introduce as many relevant entry points to a topic as you can.
Beyond safety discrepancies, there are many indicators that racial and ethnic minority populations in the US (and globally) suffer from poorer health outcomes than their white counterparts. And when it comes to mental health, all minority populations including LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities have to deal with compounding stressors—from discrimination, passive microaggressions in the workplace, and more barriers when navigating their own healthcare.
Taking your employees’ varying realities into consideration—offering a wider variety of healthcare options and mental healthcare—can greatly reduce the amount of physical and emotional strain placed on them in their day-to-day lives. As noted in this blog post, “these differences in health conditions are significant to note in workers’ comp as they can impact the individual’s healing process.” It’s important to take these factors into consideration when deciding when employees should return to work.
Beyond your immediate organization, DEI commitments can extend outward into the connections we make with our communities—both through service and in our professional partnerships. In our industry, intentionally honing supplier diversity can have a profound impact on your organization, and the organizations you choose to support.
DEI Commitment Through Supplier Diversity
In our industry, most companies tout that they have a supplier diversity program. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) defines supplier diversity programs as “a proactive business program which encourages the use of women-owned, ethnic/minority-owned, veteran-owned, LGBTQ-owned, disability-owned, and small businesses as suppliers.” In their report on supplier diversity programs, ANA cites “finding diverse suppliers” as a leading barrier to successful supplier diversity programs.
It can be difficult to find the right suppliers for your needs, and searching for suppliers online is unlikely to yield the sort of organizations that could benefit from a supplier diversity outreach program. As we know, Google and other search mechanisms favor landing pages that already receive a lot of attention, further driving the growth of organizations that are likely already receiving ample support.
“One qualitative respondent commented on the second-ranked benefit (provides opportunities for business expansion) by saying, ‘Supplier diversity cannot simply be a charity case; the empirical business impact is important.’
Although innovation was one of the lower-ranked benefits by survey respondents, a number of qualitative interviewees brought it up in discussion. One said, ‘Diverse suppliers drive innovation through their unique way of thinking versus traditional suppliers and coming with a different set of tools.’”— Association of National Advertisers
Some organizations have found a way for diverse suppliers to come to them—by creating feedback forms where suppliers can introduce their services or products and highlight why their organization is worth partnering with. If you incorporate such a form on your website, ensure that someone (or a team) owns that responsibility within your organization. These measures can run the risk of feeling performative to small or minority-owned suppliers if you are not providing responses to these submissions. So only implement these solutions once you have a process in place to research, sort, and respond to these requests for partnership.
Outside of having small and diverse suppliers come to you, organizations like the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and National Black Chamber of Commerce can be helpful in finding potential partnership opportunities. For small and diverse businesses with an impactful product, a business contract could change their world and provide your organization with a meaningful partnership with an organization that’s making a difference. Partnering with minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) also can have a profound impact on your bottom line. MWBEs “offer their corporate partners year-over-year cost savings of 8.5 percent, considerably more than the 3 to 7 percent annual procurement savings that most organizations realize” (McKinsey). The benefits of diversifying your supplier partnerships is four-fold:
- You bring fresh perspectives to your organization through your partnerships. In addition to fostering diversity of perspective within your organization, partnership input can provide a different value as external, unbiased perspective can be illuminating in ways we don’t always see internally
- Larger organizations can use their positions of power to uplift small businesses and MWBEs with the opportunity for growth
- In many cases, it provides you with a more hands-on partnership and saves your bottom line
- Supplier diversity benefits the larger economy
“If spending with certified MWBEs doubled, to $2 trillion, from the current estimate of $1 trillion, that could generate $280 billion in additional income and four million jobs for minority populations and women.” — McKinsey
DEI is about more than checking off boxes on a demographic checklist—it’s about creating organizations that are representative of the varied and beautiful society we live in. It’s about using the knowledge and privilege we hold to uplift others who could benefit from the opportunities we can provide. It’s about creating opportunities for success for all people—not just a select few who come from specific backgrounds. Intentional DEI initiatives have the potential to benefit everyone. They’re about adding value—financially, culturally, and for the health and safety of our organizations’ futures.
About Dr. Michael Hamby
Michael founded Claims Eval in 2004 after serving as a Physician Reviewer for multiple URA/IRO companies as a Chiropractor. His vision of compiling like-minded physicians to provide timely, quality results for his clients by utilizing evidence-based guidelines that were just beginning to be utilized in the URA process served as the “backbone” of Claims Eval. It was also important to Michael to provide clients with fully customizable solutions based upon their business needs.
Early in the life of Claims Eval, Michael had a vision to continue to expand the footprint within the Physician Review space by focusing on the functions that were most relevant: quality, timely responses and evidence-based decisions that would hold up if the case were to become litigated. As part of that plan, Michael developed Claims Eval proprietary software platform to engage UR professionals to assist in developing a program for growth and success.
Michael is a champion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and brings this to the market and his team through DEI initiatives. He felt that it was instrumental to register Claims Eval into the National Gay and Lesbians Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) to further his support of DEI. Michael was recently appointed as Chairperson of Community Engagement with the Rainbow Risk Alliance.
In addition to being the visionary and leader of Claims Eval, he is an engaged community leader and an executive speaker on DEI issues.
About Claims Eval
Claims Eval provides Peer and Utilization Review Services for the Worker’s Comp, Disability, Group Health, and Behavioral Health markets. We use evidence-based proceedings to determine and advocate for medical procedures and care relating to these markets. Through our physician network of over 1,200+ providers across all 50 states, we conduct specialty matching with physicians.
Claims Eval’s mission is to assist clients in creating Medical Reviews that are tailored to their specific needs while meeting the evolving state and federal guidelines. Our four pillars of excellence make us key players in the Peer and Utilization Review Services industry: timely responses, superior quality assurance, experience in the field, and evidence-based decisions.
Claims Eval is a proud member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Please contact m.hamby@claimseval.com in regards to how Claims Eval can assist in meeting your diversity needs.
Disclosure:
Claims Eval is a WorkCompWire ad partner.
This is NOT a paid placement.