Extreme Weather Is the New Safety Risk: How EHS Leaders Prepare, Protect, and Prevent 

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our webinar on how weather is the new safety risk: How EHS later leaders prepare, protect, and prevent. Today’s program is a conversation origami risk experts, Cameron Schwartz and Emily Wengel, moderated by Mindi Zissman. We’ll have a live Q and A at the end. If you’d like to ask the speakers anything, please submit those questions through the Q and A function on the Zoom toolbar, and we will address those after the presentation. So we’ll start that conversation now. Welcome to the Origami Risk webinar. I’m Mindi Zissman, and I’m excited to be here today to moderate today’s session on extreme weather with an EHS lens. Extreme weather is unfortunately no longer a future concern. It’s a daily operational reality for so many businesses. The US experienced twenty three billion dollar weather and climate disasters in twenty twenty five, and that was down significantly from the years twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four preceding it. Today’s conversation is really, though, about preparation. How can EHS professionals be more proactive versus reactive? Putting the right protections, visibility, and response plans in place so that organizations can prevent incidents and injuries and stay compliant as expectations evolve. I’m joined today by Cameron Schwartz and Emily Wengel from Origami’s team who have worked closely with EHS professionals for decades navigating these exact challenges. Cameron, would love you to introduce yourself. Hi. Thanks, Mindi. Yeah. And I’m Cameron Schwartz. I’m a safety professional. Been in the industry for about fifteen years. Worked primarily in manufacturing before coming to Origami, where now I work with our clients and prospects to implement and use technology to support their safety programs and cultures. So happy to be here today. Some. Emily. Hi, everyone. I’m Emily Wingull. I work on the EHS team in product marketing, which means I help to translate what our wonderful product team is doing into something that’s easily understandable for our clients and prospects so that they can uncover the value of Origami’s EHS solution. Awesome. Thanks, Emily. Well, let’s dive right in. Extreme weather used to be an occasional unexpected risk for a bunch of businesses. Now it can occur way more frequently. There’s more severity. Right? And it’s arguably even in some places become a daily hazard for many organizations. What risks are organizations taking when they don’t plan ahead and think about what they can do to be better prepared for a future weather event? Emily? Yeah. I actually have two great examples of, you know, different types of ways that severe weather can impact safety programs. So the first one is around driver safety. So if there’s extreme weather happening on the roads, hazardous conditions, that can impact drivers’ drive time and rest time. So if they’re not taking the brakes that are allotted to them, they’re not having the proper rest, if there are unfavorable weather conditions on the road leading to delays, this can lead to potential incidents and crashes, due to sleep deprivation. And so potential ways to prevent this, is possibly using dashcams, in order to track that the drivers are actually taking the rest that they need to prevent the crashes and keeping them safe. Another example is extreme heat. So a study at UCLA showed that higher temperatures not only were associated with obviously direct impact to potential heat stroke, that sort of thing, but also also linked to more injuries related to falls from scaffolding, wounds from machinery, collisions with industrial vehicles. So by exposing your workers to extreme heat, you’re you’re running into all these types of risks of incidents and injuries. So there’s a lot of ways that you can prevent this. You can focus on more rest cycle work rest cycles as the temperature rises, making sure those cycles shorten, ensuring communication is put in place so that proper training and procedures are followed, and also just kind of centralizing things in a single source of truth so that the communication is efficient. K. There’s lots to unpack there. I like that you brought up the fleet also because I think a lot of businesses even that aren’t in transportation have a fleet. So I think that those are great points. And we know OSHA has a new heat role, which hopefully we’re gonna talk about later as well. So great points, Emily. Cameron. Yeah. From my experience, both working in safety operations and helping organize organizations implement safety technology, I think the biggest risk is really operating reactively instead of proactively. When we don’t make a plan for when disaster strikes, these are the risks that we really expose ourselves to. And I guess if I kinda put that into three categories, like, first, we put our people and their well-being at risk. Our teams face preventable safety hazards, and whether we’re talking about heat stress or icy conditions, flooding, lightning, poor air quality. Like, there’s a whole list of things we could go through there, but things escalate quickly whenever we really don’t have a plan or or controls in place. Secondly, I think we put our businesses at risk when we don’t plan effectively. Whether we have production shutdowns, there’s supply chain delay delays, and site evacuations, they become chaotic and a lot more costly when we don’t have triggers and actions defined ahead of time. And finally, regulatory risks like OSHA’s heat standard or or wildfire smoke requirements. There’s a lot of, like, non preparedness that we can do within that we have. If we don’t if we’re not prepared in business, that can actually now lead to fines and citations. To be better prepared, organizations need to shift from ad hoc response to build in readiness. And that means standardizes standardized emergency policies, site specific playbooks, communication protocols, and most importantly, to make sure that the entire team is on the same page. And to that end, world class organizations use systems kinda like Origami so that way we can detect and act on those risks consistence consistently across locations. Okay. That’s such a great point. And I’m gonna put it back on you and ask you to give us a few components of an effective emergency preparedness plan because I think you were kind of, like, leading up to that, but everyone needs to do it. And what needs to be included? What are some of the things that either folks are also overlooking sometimes? I think some of us know, like, what should generally be in it, but what do you see just as a whole of what actually needs to be in, and then what what do some folks forget about and forget about including? I I think we can kinda use the five pronged approach for this. First is hazard specific procedures. So clear actions on how our team should handle situations like fires, storms, flooding, winter weather. The list goes on and on, but really having a plan in place for each of these impacting events. Just make sure you have a plan. Once you have that plan in place, you wanna have defined roles and a chain of command. When that plan activates, everyone knows who makes the call to evacuate, to shut down operations, or activate response teams. It really eliminates the potential for chaos or inaction by defining who makes that ultimate call. Once the call is made, it’s it’s all about communication. How are we quickly reaching our teams? So that way they know how we are activating the specific plan. And so we’re we’re really lucky to live in the time that we do. Everybody’s got a cell phone for the most part, and and we’ve got access to to technology. So that means activating a plan where we can hit their phones with texts and emails and push notifications and alerts. It’s easier than ever to foster real time communications to large teams. We have those plans in place then. Also, we wanna think about integrating our training and drills. So once again, annual site specific documented, tabletop exercises or actually running drills. You know? Do all of your employees know what muster zones to go to and and how they’re reacting? Making sure people aren’t reentering a building if there’s some kind of a threat internally. So, those things are important for the the trainings and drills. And then finally, I think about our data and technology infrastructure. We have access to weather monitoring, notifications, documented actions, and and also, like, post event response of that evaluation of how did we do, what we could what can we do to to make it better. Organizations that succeed, they they don’t just write the plan. They put it into action with tools and workflows so that way people can use those in real time. Wow. That’s so it’s so great. The tabletop exercises I hear from people are, like, so important. Right? Like, we all have plans of what we wanna do in an emergency, but if we don’t practice it and we don’t play it out, you never know what will happen. Okay. That’s great. Thank you so much, Cameron. Let’s take preparedness even one step further. How can organizations, and you mentioned this, Cameron, a little bit, gain visibility into local weather patterns? How can they track them or integrate them even into their back end to meet compliance requirements like we mentioned before OSHA’s new heat rule? Emily, can you talk about kind of that back end, integration with the services that are out there from, you know, our nonprofit organizations that are tracking weather and stuff? Yeah. Definitely. I’ll dig into some of the things that Cameron mentioned around having the data and infrastructure in place to have that at monitoring. So, if you use technology to integrate with weather data from, you know, local sources, you can you could set up alerts to facility managers and supervisors and other important stakeholders related to extreme weather notifications. So, you know, in the case of OSHA’s heat rule, you could get weather alerts related to high temperatures. So this will allow them to be better prepared. So, for example, if the site manager, at a specific location received an extreme weather alert based on that specific location, having extreme weather, they could then respond in a way that would be reasonable for their employees to prevent potential harm and be in compliance with the new OSHA rule. So for example, the new OSHA rule says at a certain, temperature of eighty degrees, you’re supposed to provide certain things to employees such as cool drinking water. So in the case of extreme heat, they could receive a notification at that site and make sure that those individuals are compliant with the new rule. Okay. That’s great. Thanks, Emily. There’s a growing recognition that we can prevent these accidents, right, from notifications, etcetera, and then doing that can ultimately reduce claims on the back end. How can EHS leaders think about the connection between weather preparedness and the financial impact to their bottom line with a safety program? Emily, I’ll kick it back to you. Yeah. Definitely. And this is a really important question because it helps EHS professionals become more strategic. If you can tie the impact of your safety program to a reduction in claims, financial impact within the organization, you can advocate for additional safety investments in your program and continue to keep workers safe. So I’ll dive into a specific example around the driver safety, example of extreme weather, drivers being on the road for too long, causing potential incidents and injuries. I’ll dive into that example. So in that example, if you have preventative measures in place such as dash cams to ensure that your drivers are not on the road for too long, You can, reduce accidents, and crashes, which means that you can reduce claims and litigation. From a financial perspective, if you’re working with your risk team, that means a lower total cost of risk. And you can get buy in from your risk and safety executives for that investment in the safety program if you’re able to show that impact. Why why does the rest of the organization cares? For risk professionals, this can lead to, basically, accidents can lead to increased general liability, auto workers’ comp claims. And when that happens, when a crash happens, that’s a major risk, that they are gonna get sued by a third party because these individuals see deep pockets for trucking companies. So that’s the financial impact on that side. And then from a DROC perspective, risk professionals care about enterprise risk, business continuity. So, like, how is this gonna impact operations? How is this gonna impact the cargo actually getting to the place it needs to go? Right. Emrein, anything to add? Man, there there’s a direct line between being prepared and reduced claims. And nearly every origami implementation I’ve supported, you can actually see how weather driven incidents, slips on ice, heat exposures, vehicle accidents, and storms. These drive some of the highest severity claims. And so I I think preparedness impacts the financial picture kind of in three ways. One is incident reduction lowers claims claim frequency. So eliminating even one weather related injury can save, I would say, up to six figures in claim costs. I was talking with a safety professional that works in with a major automotive retailer, parts retailer that we we would all know and love. And he shared that with their systems in place that if rain is in the forecast, they have a reminder sent to all their storefronts to put out a bin that holds umbrellas for their customers and and their team members if they go out to change light bulbs or battery windshield wipers, whatever. And and so, like, that’s a a great way to try to reduce some of the impact of of storms that might be out there. When snow hits, they have triggers that drive solving their entryways. These small actions are known to reduce slips, trips, and falls, which, you know, is a huge, you know, general liability risk there. Secondly, early intervention can reduce the claim severity. So once again, coming back to that training element, how do you recognize early symptoms of exposure, like, to heat? If we can eliminate or or reduce the effect of heat stress, we know that that can prevent, you know, hospitalization or, you know, how how much impact there is to the human body if if we can quickly counteract those conditions. And then finally, kinda coming back to better data. When we have better data and programs, it can really improve our insurance positioning. Carriers and brokers love seeing organizations that track near misses and the exposures that are impacting them and the controls tied to how they’re they’re handling those risks. It leads to better underwriting outcomes, lower premiums, and better retention. That’s great. Thank you both for sharing those case study examples. I think when we can actually imagine, you know, these scenarios, it it’s, so much more impactful, the message. Okay. So if an organization wanted to do one thing in twenty twenty six or even in q one or q two to just get something started to better prepare for extreme weather, what would you recommend they do? You know, where where should people get started? Emily. Yeah. I think kind of going into some of the things that Cameron said around near misses. So and and also what we’ve been talking about in terms of setting up weather alerts to be more proactive and preventative. Getting those leading indicators in place are going to enable you to identify risk and hazards and respond appropriately, which is ultimately going to enable you to keep your workers safer. Great. Cameron. Man, where where to start? The famous last words. This is it. So I I think you like, we in in safety, we talk a lot about leading and lagging indicators. And I think with this situation as far as, like, how do we prepare better for the the future, maybe we look to the past a little bit. So where I would start is look at the last three years of data that you have. Do you have any incidents, claims, or situations maybe where extreme weather was involved? Evaluate how you did. So how well were your teams prepared for that situation? Did they have a documented plan that addressed, you know, what the what the response was? Maybe were the teams properly trained before the event happened? So that way they weren’t just thrown into a situation where they’re just kind of winging it. If you had a plan in place, did they follow the plan? You know? You can usually go back through that timeline and see, you know, here’s our plan. Here’s how we executed. Where were the gaps? And then ultimately, kinda come down to the point of what could have been improved. And once you figure out, like, where those gaps are, you look at, do we need to rewrite our policies? Do we need to take this from maybe a corporate perspective and and apply, like, local site logistics? Like, if I’m talking about winter weather and I have locations in Florida, I’m maybe not quite as concerned about those things. So really getting site specific and addressing those plans is really important. After you’ve looked at your historical responses, I think and and if you have that kind of buttoned up, you could shift your strategy to future potential risks. We have AI. It’s it’s in front of us. We we have it accessible now to us. So using that to create a great prompt on researching your physical locations and what types of events your teams could face, you could use things like that to put a plan in place to make sure everyone’s trained on it even to the point of audits and inspections that you could have a checklist sent out to those individual facilities to make sure they have the things that they need for these critical responses. You know, we we help it over kind of evolve over time by soliciting feedback from really, like, your most valuable asset, which is your team members. Talk to your teams about it, where you’re falling short, and how you can improve. You know, finally, I’ll kinda leave you with this. As a safety professional, as as I led trainings in the past, I always like to figure out relevant ways, to personalize safety and not in a cheesy way, but, like, really things that could be impactful. So I’ll share a quick story, and I’ll start it with a question. If you live in a state or or where you’re impacted by winter weather, what does your personal vehicle look like to be prepared for a situation? My wife and I are blessed to have three teenage drivers in our house right now, and Ohio weathers or Ohio winter weather is can be can be brutal at times, and I wanna make sure they’re safe when they leave the house. And so to that end, I think I spent maybe a hundred bucks, and I’ve equipped each of my vehicles with an emergency roadside kit, including first aid supplies, jumper cables. And, actually, just this winter, I put in a little battery inflator from Ryobi that has USB ports on that you could use for emergency charging for your phones and stuff. Now, hopefully, the kids don’t just, you know, deplete the battery before it actually is needed, but that’s a whole another situation. You know, part of it is having the the thought to put that emergency preparedness in place. But then the other big thing is I had to go with each of my kids and train them. Hey. Here’s how you use the inflator. Here’s what you need to do. Here’s how you check the inside of your door to make sure, like, you don’t overinflate or underinflate the tires. Explaining to them, you know, where are those emergency first aid kits. And then all ultimately, kind of coming back to that auditing principle, like, we have a regimen that we’re going out, and we check to make sure those things are in their in our cars, like, once a week, some things once a month. But it it’s so important just to make sure, like, we’ve evaluated what those risks are. We train to it, and we make sure everybody’s on the same page. I love that. Thank you for the personal example. It’s always great to hear. Okay. Great. I think we have a lot of great takeaways today. Number one, it’s incumbent on all organizations to prepare for extreme weather, right, regardless and because of your location and previous losses also. This includes tracking weather forecasts in your local area, developing an emergency preparedness plan that’s thorough, monitoring local data for local and federal compliance efforts like the new OSHA heat rule. There’s so much that organizations can do and get started with. Thank you so much, Cameron and Emily, for joining us today. This is really an impactful session. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mindi. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. That was a great conversation. We’re gonna open up the program for q and a now. And if you’ve got questions, you can type those into the q and a section at the bottom of the Zoom toolbar. We’ll start with our first question now. So our first question is, we talk a lot about protecting workers, which is obviously the priority. But how should EHS leaders frame extreme weather preparedness when speaking to executives who are focused on cost, risk, and operational continuity? And, Emily, I’ll go to you. Yeah. It’s a really good question, and we did touch on it a little bit earlier in the conversation. But I’ll just say, the reason why it’s such an important question is because we hear from a lot of EHS professionals that they struggle to get internal buy in. They struggle to get investments in their safety program, maybe due to a lack of safety culture or just maybe it’s not an organizational priority. But as a safety professional, if you’re able to connect the impact of your safety program to financial impact, to enterprise impact, to show what the impact is on downstream productivity, downtime, equipment damage, and claims and litigation costs, you can advocate for increased investment in your safety program. So that’s definitely the language you have to speak with executives. You have to explain to them that by putting proactive measures in place to reduce employee incidents and injuries, you’re ultimately going to save costs and prevent any disruption to operations. Okay. Great. Thanks. Cameron, I’m gonna direct our next question to you. So a lot of organizations track weather forecast informally, but what does it actually look like to operationalize weather data inside an EHS program? You know, I I I think to my own personal usage, I’m I’m asking Siri or Alexa, you know, to kinda tell me about what the weather is. And so I think a lot of our team members are doing the same thing. And so where we kinda bring Origami or a risk management platform into, you know, real time usage is instead of casually check checking, like, weather forecasts, organizations can really integrate real time weather alerts into their their intelligence within, like, a system like Origami. We have all the locations. We have, geotagging that’s available. And so as those traffic, those weather patterns kind of come into existence, we can analyze that information with locations where where they’re at and then send out real time alerts. And not only alerts, but even enable workflows. So if you have audits and inspections that you might want somebody to go and take an inventory over the outside of a facility before it’s impacted by weather or there’s additional protocols that you have for vehicle inspections, the the list is endless on on how you could actually use technology to drive enforcement to your policies and programs and ultimately enforce that training that we talked about before. Okay. Great. Thanks. Well, it looks like those are all our questions for today. So I wanna thank you all for joining us. I’d like to extend a special thank you to our speakers, Emily, Cameron, and Mindi. So thank you all again for your participation, and have a wonderful day. Thank you.