University of St. Thomas
PA-15: Workplace Health and Safety

Occupational injuries and illness are reported to our human resources/benefits department on a standardized on-line injury and illness reporting form. The form is filled out jointly by the affected employee and their supervisor. The supervisor is responsible for filing the report promptly with HR. Copies of the injury reports automatically go to our EH&S department and the employees line management. HR determines OSHA recordability and maintains the OSHA 300 log with advice from our EH&S department and our workers compensation consultant. The injury log is reviewed and certified at the end of each calendar year prior to posting and reporting our log.

Data on the number of recordable injuries come from the university's OSHA 300 logs. The university's OSHA log includes both full-time/part-time staff as well as student employees. To be consistent with the University's OSHA reporting of injuries, we have provided in this credit an estimated full-time equivalent of employees that includes student employees listed in the OSHA log. As a result, the full-time equivalent figure in this credit is not consistent with the employee FTE figure reported in PRE-5, which does not include student employees. Data provided for this credit are for 2023.

The Environmental Health and Safety Program has adopted a safety culture model that includes the traditional safety management components that form the basis for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) and expands on that with additional elements emphasizing continuous improvement, organizational fairness, and employee empowerment.
1. Leadership Commitment
core value / resources / visible support / evaluation and reward
2. Continuous Improvement
structure / trial, test, implement best practices / communicating successes
3. Employee Empowerment and Involvement
participation (e.g., committees, assessment groups) / deference to expertise / questioning attitudes / personal and collective accountability
4. Organizational Fairness
collaboration / transparency / just culture / positive reinforcement
5. Safety Management Systems
Inspections, hazard assessments / chemical inventories, exposure assessments, incident investigations / space planning, experiment planning, purchasing controls, preventive maintenance program / emergency plans / audits / occupational health services / training and education / written programs