- The Outdoor Adventure Industry Dr Stacey Moran Works With Organizations To Improve Their Safety Practices For Both Clie 1 (298.54 KiB) Viewed 52 times
clients/customers and employees. Dr. Moran received her Ph.D. in I/O psychology from
Pennsylvania State University in 1991. She is a member of the Workers Compensation and
Cost Containment Department for St. Paul Travelers Insurance Company. Her role is to help
organizations apply principles of psychology to issues involving health and safety at work. As
the oldest insurance organization in the United States, St. Paul Travelers is very interested in
helping their customers reduce the number and severity of accidents and injuries they suffer.
Dr. Moran helps them accomplish this by providing consulting to insureds and company
representatives, putting on training programs about safety, and conducting surveys about
accident experiences and safety practices. She deals with all areas of OHP (Occupational
Health Psychology), including accidents, burnout, stress, and violence.
One of her projects was a survey of organizations in the outdoor adventure industry in
North America. This is a rapidly growing service industry that provides outdoor recreation with
activities such as camping, rock climbing, and white-water rafting. Many these organizations
are in the nonprofit sector, such as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The industry is quite concerned
about safety, as many of the activities people engage in have the potential for injury.
The goal of this project was to collect information from a large sample of organizations
about their safety concerns and practices. This would provide a picture of the state of the
industry that could inform where efforts should be targeted to improve safety. Dr. Moran
worked in collaboration with Outward Bound, USA, a St. Paul Travelers’ insured and the oldest
and largest outdoor adventure program in the world. She helped design a survey that was sent
to 1,265 organizations throughout North America, and 294 useable surveys were returned
(nearly 25%). She analyzed the results and wrote a report for the industry.
The results showed that members of the adventure industry are concerned about safety
but that the areas of concern don’t necessarily match where their safety efforts are placed. For
example, the two major issues identified were driver safety and instructor judgment training. However, most respondents reported that their organizations failed to provide training in these
areas. The major conclusions were that improvements are needed in three areas: training,
assessment of risk and tracking of accident/injury patterns, and development of safety cultures
where injury prevention is a major objective. Interestingly there was a high correlation between
customer/client injuries and employee injuries—those organizations that had a high incidence
of one had a high incidence of the other. Thus it would be expected that practices that reduced
injuries for one group would reduce injuries for the other.
Dr. Moran’s report was widely distributed throughout the industry to inform
organizations about the steps they should take to increase safety. This project illustrates how
positive change in organizations can be accomplished by providing specific information about
effective actions that can be taken to solve an important problem.
Case Study Questions:
1. Why would an insurance company be concerned about the safety of their insureds’
clients/customers?
2. How can the outdoor adventure industry improve its safety climate?
3. Some managers would argue that employee safety is not the concern of management
and that employees should be responsible for their own safety. Do you agree with this?
why or why not?
The Outdoor Adventure Industry Dr. Stacey Moran works with organizations to improve their safety practices for both clients/customers and employees. Dr. Moran received her Ph.D. in I/O psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1991. She is a member of the Workers Compensation and Cost Containment Department for St. Paul Travelers Insurance Company. Her role is to help organizations apply principles of psychology to issues involving health and safety at work. As the oldest insurance organization in the United States, St. Paul Travelers is very interested in helping their customers reduce the number and severity of accidents and injuries they suffer. Dr. Moran helps them accomplish this by providing consulting to insureds and company representatives, putting on training programs about safety, and conducting surveys about accident experiences and safety practices. She deals with all areas of OHP (Occupational Health Psychology), including accidents, burnout, stress, and violence. One of her projects was a survey of organizations in the outdoor adventure industry in North America. This is a rapidly growing service industry that provides outdoor recreation with activities such as camping, rock climbing, and white-water rafting. Many these organizations are in the nonprofit sector, such as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The industry is quite concerned about safety, as many of the activities people engage in have the potential for injury. The goal of this project was to collect information from a large sample of organizations about their safety concerns and practices. This would provide a picture of the state of the industry that could inform where efforts should be targeted to improve safety. Dr. Moran worked in collaboration with Outward Bound, USA, a St. Paul Travelers' insured and the oldest and largest outdoor adventure program in the world. She helped design a survey that was sent to 1,265 organizations throughout North America, and 294 useable surveys were returned (nearly 25%). She analyzed the results and wrote a report for the industry. The results showed that members of the adventure industry are concerned about safety but that the areas of concern don't necessarily match where their safety efforts are placed. For example, the two major issues identified were driver safety and instructor judgment training. Page 1 of 4 However, most respondents reported that their organizations failed to provide training in these areas. The major conclusions were that improvements are needed in three areas: training, assessment of risk and tracking of accident/injury patterns, and development of safety cultures where injury prevention is a major objective. Interestingly there was a high correlation between customer/client injuries and employee injuries—those organizations that had a high incidence of one had a high incidence of the other. Thus it would be expected that practices that reduced injuries for one group would reduce injuries for the other. Dr. Moran's report was widely distributed throughout the industry to inform organizations about the steps they should take to increase safety. This project illustrates how positive change in organizations can be accomplished by providing specific information about effective actions that can be taken to solve an important problem. Case Study Questions: 1. Why would an insurance company be concerned about the safety of their insureds' clients/customers? 2. How can the outdoor adventure industry improve its safety climate? 3. Some managers would argue that employee safety is not the concern of management and that employees should be responsible for their own safety. Do you agree with this? why or why not?