University of Wisconsin-River Falls
PA-12: Workplace Health and Safety

The 2012 baseline was adopted because the Office of Safety and Loss Prevention in Madison only keeps records for 5 years. We had hoped to use 2005, to be consistent with the majority of our report's baselines, but we no longer have access to the 2005 OSHA log.

The mission of the Risk Management Department is to plan, develop, coordinate and maintain the UW-River Falls safety and risk programs. The purpose of these programs is to provide a safe and healthy work environment for university employees and reduce the number, severity and costs of workplace injuries and other types of losses. This mission is being accomplished by the following activities:

Developing proactive loss prevention and control programs and techniques that will eliminate or reduce the risk of a workplace injury or illness.
Developing, coordinating and sponsoring responsive health and safety training programs for employees, supervisors and managers.
Providing resources and technical assistance to enable UWRF to comply with applicable Department of Commerce/OSHA health and safety regulations and the Governor's Executive Order #194.
Developing positive relationships.
Coordinating loss prevention surveys and hazard assessments.
Identifying the risk factors that contribute to losses and the strategies and resources needed to eliminate or control these risk factors.
Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of safety and risk programs and activities to insure that those program goals are achieved.

Goals – 2015

1.) Perform 12 safety walkthroughs of main campus buildings and at least 6 walkthroughs of residence halls during 2015. Draft action plans for addressing safety concerns. (The results of this effort will be reported to the Chancellor's cabinet as a component of the Division of Business and Finance dashboard.)
2.) Participate in at least one safety walk sponsored by Student Senate.
3.) Identify at least one safety process or program on campus that needs improvement and research a "Best Practice" model. Implement the Best Practice model at UWRF.
4.) Leverage aspects of health and safety to justify at least 4 campus projects during 2015.
5.) Develop an injury reduction campaign for the campus that will focus on injury types that have the largest personal and financial impact.
6.) Develop and present active shooter response education for the campus.
7.) Focus on improving machine guarding and training in identified departments with woodworking equipment.

Additional responsible party: Molly Matzek (Classified Staff Payroll)