By Chad Engle, Loss Prevention and Safety Specialist

I am incredibly excited to announce that I have obtained approval to increase the number of Money for Minutes awards from two to five for calendar year 2021! So, this year, five different committees will have a chance at winning $500.00 to use for their safety committee’s budget.

In 2018 NIRMA debuted the Money for Minutes program and we saw a 51% increase in the number of members that held four quarterly safety committee meetings, reviewed all incidents, events and injuries and submitted minutes to NIRMA for review. The last two years we have seen a significant drop off in the number of committees holding quarterly meetings. I am sure this drop off in meetings may have something to do with the statewide flooding in 2019 and the worldwide pandemic in 2020.

My hopes are that the additional awards will lead to another increase in safety committees meeting that we will be able to sustain into future years. Again, it requires more than just hold a meeting to be eligible for Money for Minutes. During the meeting all incidents, injuries, events, claims, etc. that occurred during the prior quarter are to be discussed. The point of the discussion is to identify changes that can be made to reduce the possibility of that incident occurring again. Please include that discussion in the minutes and then simply email me a copy of the minutes at chad@nirma.info.

Please resist the urge to simply classify each incident or injury as “preventable” or “not preventable.” Dig deeper and try to identify the root cause, by stating an incident was not preventable we are saying that each
time that task is completed, we can expect a similar outcome. That is unacceptable.

If your county or agency was fortunate enough to not have any new incidents to discuss, please look at training topics or perform worksite inspections or any of the other recommended Best Safety Practices for Counties. Be proactive with your committee’s loss prevention efforts. As always, it is my pleasure to assist your committee, I can always be reached at chad@nirma.info or 800.842.6671.