Ohio Valley Electrical Services

Ohio Valley Electrical Services in Blue Ash, Ohio is taking care of their business and their employees at the same time. The company has joined with 3 other companies in hiring Joel, a physical therapist to work with their employees. Each company shares Joel for 13 hours every week. The company has set up a room in their office where Joel has set up onsite therapy. Joel not only helps employees with work related injuries, but also with non-work-related injuries. This keeps their employees healthy and ready to work safely. Mike Ratliff, Director of Safety & Training explained that Joel not only helps their employees heal for work related injuries, if there aren’t any current physical therapy needs, Joel taught the employees the importance of stretching before work, warm-up exercises, etc. On one occasion, Joel created a competition of who has the lowest blood pressure. One employee found out that his blood pressure was very high and that he needed to see his Primary Care Physician to see if medication should be started.

Mike also has started a pre-fab shop where employees with modified duty restrictions can pre-wire junction boxes, help set up panels at the employer’s jobsite so that the panels can be taken to the job site and installed, and work with the new hires in their training. The company also invested in scanning equipment which can go to a jobsite, scan the site which then creates a Computer Aided Drafting picture of the job site. Employees can then create the electrical work at the employer’s location and transport the new equipment to the jobsite. This reduced the amount of time that employees must be at the jobsite which can be cold, wet, as well as other hazards such as operating around other trades working on-site.

It is great to see a company that not only works to reduce their BWC premium, but also reduce their employee’s down time from injury, whether work related or not. It is a great example of how caring for your employees helps everyone involved.