|
|
|
 |
| Overview |
|
A RisKey or Guide to Managing Ride-Along and Tag-Along Programs
Ride-along, tag-along, employee-shadow. . . These and similar programs allow someone to tag-along with your employee to see what you do and how you do it. We will call them guest programs. A guest program can display your employee’s professionalism, the obstacles your agency faces, and the good you do.
However, guest programs also carry serious risks. And, risk always costs you money. It costs you to manage your risks. It costs you, in losses, to not manage them. If you allow people to tag-along without a managed plan, your agency risks unexpected consequences.
|
|
|
| Who might tag-along? |
|
Tag-along guests could be anyone with an interest in your agency and its work. Usually, they ask to tag-along. Sometimes you invite them. Your guests might include:
General Public: Anyone can be genuinely interested in what your agency does. Examples include students, people considering a career in public service, members of special interest groups, hobbyists, visitors from other states or countries, or people from any organization that is similar to, or affected by, your agency. Of course, a bold crook might be interested as well.
Official guests: People who have a formal or influential interest in your agency, but have no clear authority to tag-along without your permission. Examples include legislators, reporters, auditors, certain inspectors. They may include those you invite to tag along to gain support or understanding of your viewpoint. You generally owe a greater duty of care to guests that you invite for your own purposes.
Employee Family Members: An employee’s relatives or friends may want to see what he or she does for a living. Family members should only tag-along with an un-related employee. Relatives and friends may put your employee in a conflict of interest, especially if the job can be hazardous.
Guests with Multiple Hats: When someone has multiple roles or relationships to you, it is important to be clear about which role, relationship, or hat he or she is wearing. Your office employee spends his day off riding with a host-employee in the field. Is he your employee or your guest? A volunteer, contractor, client, or agent rides along while off-duty. Is she a guest? It is important to be clear about which role applies. Do not leave an ambiguity to be cleared up in court after something goes wrong.
Non-Guests: Your own on-duty employees, volunteers, and agents are not guests, even if they are riding with someone for orientation, cross training, or just to observe.
Children: This RisKey is not designed to deal with child guests. You always owe a greater duty of care to a minor. The younger the child, the greater your duty to care and protect. Children lack the legal capacity to enter into a contract or waive their rights. You cannot order or provide medical care to a minor without parent or legal guardian’s consent. You should carefully design any guest program for minors with the aid of legal counsel and extra care to prevent harm.
|
|
|
| Duties to a tag-along guest |
|
You generally owe a somewhat greater duty to a tag-along guest than you owe the public at large. Your duties to guests include:
-
Orient them. Warn of the risks and rules of your workplace. Your work and workplace are not designed for the comfort and safety of guests. You must warn them of risks that are not obvious to the uninformed. Tailor your warnings to the circumstances. But, it is usually better to overstate risks a little than to play them down.
-
Tell guests your priorities. Tell them that your guest program must be secondary to your mission, your budget, and to the safety of employees, clients, and the public. Warn them that their host can direct and control them as needed to meet those higher priorities and for their safety. You might give examples of possible situations and instructions.
-
Protect them. Act to reasonably protect from reasonably foreseeable harm related to tagging along. Acting to reasonably prevent all foreseeable harm is the level of duty you may face if you do not obtain your guests’ informed consent and waiver of rights. Even with these, you may be liable for any harm caused by your employees’ gross recklessness or malice.
-
Provide a competent host or guide. Your employee-host should be able and experienced. She should be able to do the job and look out reasonably for her guest at the same time. You need someone who will not negligently endanger guests. You may also want a good salesperson.
|
|
|
| Risks to you from your guest? |
|
Unless you tell guests otherwise, they may assume you have agreed to be their bodyguard and insurer. They may believe that keeping guests safe is the most important thing in the world to you. What is important is that your guests know your priorities. The chance of guests suing you reduces as you reduce the gap between your assumptions and expectations and theirs.
A guest may sue you for any real, imagined, or phony harm. Prevention is your best approach. Do it through good planning, orientation, disclosures of risk, and waivers of rights. If someone does make a claim against you, we may be able to use some of the following defenses:
-
In the given situation you did not owe the guest a duty to prevent the harm.
-
You acted reasonably. You could not have reasonably foreseen or prevented the harm.
-
The guest was fully informed of the risks and, as a condition of accompanying you, he waived or released his right to claim against you.
-
The guest was covered by workers’ compensation (as when someone rides along on behalf of her employer, a contractor perhaps, to observe what you do).
-
The claim is fraudulent. To allow for this defense, you should be reasonably cautious about guests and their property. Set policies and procedures that help insulate your host employees from a guest’s false allegations of theft or assault. You probably already do this with regard to clients.
Also, a bad guest might steal from, slander, harass, or injure your employees or clients. She might take and misuse confidential information. You are generally not responsible for the independent actions of a guest. However, your guest or the person your guest harms may claim she was not your guest at all. They may try to prove she was technically your agent or volunteer worker. Without good planning and management, a guest could look like an agent. A court might then find your agency liable for her actions. To reduce the risks of a bad guest:
-
Be very clear to your guest that she is only a guest, not a volunteer.
-
Do nothing that might make a guest look like an employee to others.
-
Do not allow or direct a guest to do work for you.
-
Maintain security for personal and confidential records.
-
Do not let guests wander around facilities unattended.
-
If warranted, arrange for background checks (talk to legal counsel first).
|
|
|
| Risks of injury to a guest? |
|
If a guest is injured on your watch, you may want to help with medical costs and the like. You may be unable to do so. Neither you nor we may use the public’s money to pay a private person for injuries unless the state is legally liable for the injuries. There are two ways the state could be liable. First, you may have wrongfully caused the injury (or failed a legal duty to prevent it). Second, we could have contracted with you to provide insurance or self-insurance just for your guests. Through us, the state buys insurance and self-insures its own risks. Most state coverages only protect agencies and employees. Some apply to volunteers and agents. Unless a guest is injured in a state vehicle accident, none of the normal coverages apply directly to guests.
Even if your guests give you informed waivers of their rights against you, it is wise to identify and minimize the hazards your guests will face:
-
Guests are exposed to the same everyday risks that everyone faces. Slips, falls, some crimes, and vehicle collisions can happen anywhere.
-
Guests are also exposed to the special hazards of your work and your workplace. To you, these hazards may seem routine. But, guests are untrained, unequipped, and inexperienced. Your hazards may include weather, machinery, chemicals, and dangerous or dishonest clients.
-
Guests may be dependent upon and feel vulnerable to their host employees. This risk may increase in the field or on the road, at night, and in severe weather. Of course, a bad employee could steal from, harass, or injure a guest. All hosts should be highly dependable, experienced employees.
|
|
|
| Planning a tag-along program |
|
Good programs always include four characteristics. First, they are planned. Second, they are written. Third, they identify the person who coordinates and is responsible for the program. Fourth, all participants, guests and hosts, are trained to the plan.
Planning means making choices before all your options are taken away from you. Planning for a guest program means making major and minor decisions. Your major decisions guide your minor ones. Major decisions include these:
-
What is your goal or purpose in having guests tag along?
-
What will your budget be? (What can you afford?)
-
What can go wrong? (How can you prevent or prepare and pay for it?)
Here are some other questions to help you make decisions for your plan. Just because we include a question, does not imply that you should do what it asks. You know your goals, your budget, and what can go wrong. You make the decisions.
-
Who may be guests? When, and how often? Why would they want to? Can family members tag-along? Under what conditions? Physical requirements? ADA accommodations?
-
How will guests apply to tag-along? What forms, information, and process? Will you advertise or solicit for guests?
-
What selection process? Do you need to screen guests or can you accept virtually anyone? How will you document screening and rejections? How will rejections be communicated?
-
What medical or emergency information will you need? Will you require guests to have their own health insurance? How will you deal with a guest’s possible physical limitations?
-
What is the order of your priorities? You have the interests of employee, client, and public welfare; official duties and client services, agency property, agency security, budget, and guests.
-
What dress and equipment prohibitions or requirements? Do guests need to dress in any certain way? Is there prohibited dress or accessories? Can they bring and use tape recorders, video cameras, or still cameras? How about a flash or camera light? Is a guest forbidden to bring along guns, knives, mace, children, alcohol, candy bars, cigarette lighters, illicit drugs?
-
What activity prohibitions or requirements? What can a guest do or not do? Must guests follow the instructions of the host employee? When can guests leave the car or office? Under what conditions will they be unable to abort their tour?
-
How will you select host employees? Who can do the best job for you and your guest?
-
How much risk will you assume for a guest? What is your budget? You may want to have us buy insurance for your guests. But, we recommend you inform guests in writing of the risks and require that they release you from liability for injury or harm that may come from tagging along.
-
What else? What did we leave out? What else is important to you?
A set of example forms are attached. The Release From Liability is approved by the Department of Justice. You can use it. On its reverse is an example Conditions and Disclosure of Risks. Do not use it without change. You should write your own. You know the risks of your agency best. Tailor any forms as needed to fit your program. Have them reviewed by your legal counsel.
|
|
|
| Conclusion |
|
Plan now, before unplanned events reduce your options. You can call us to talk over your guest program. We can share risk control ideas and risk financing options. We can tell you of tag-along coordinators in other agencies. We can provide our example forms on computer disk. Call your Risk Management Consultant at 373-RISK.
Please see our liability and property policy manuals for more details on state coverages.
Our thanks to the Oregon State Police for sharing their ride-along program from which we freely borrowed.
8/95
|
|
| |
|
|
