The CORE Score: What Is It and Where Did It Come From?
See how the CORE Score is charting a clear path to safety for the GROWMARK System with Cory Merriman, Safety & Environmental Services Manager
If you are like me, when you hear the word “core,” you might associate it with other words like strengths, beliefs, or values, or maybe a dreaded ab workout. Core is defined as the part of something that is central to its existence or character.
The CORE Score, developed by the Safety & Environmental Services team, stands for a Comprehensive Risk Evaluation, which is an in-depth analysis of a company's safety culture, and is central to how safe its culture is.
The CORE Score framework evaluates a company’s environmental and safety compliance, programs, systems, processes, and loss metrics. This data from these ratings flows together to help develop an overall score. The Safety & Environmental Services team inspects a third of the member and retail locations each year to help determine their CORE Score, providing clarity on the strength of their safety culture.
The scoring system provides companies with insight into their performance both individually and compared to their peers. Matt Harken, the Manager of the Safety & Environmental Engagement Team, created a scoring mechanism that assigns ratings ranging from zero to five. A score of zero is labeled as "unaware," a score of three is categorized as "established," and a score of five is designated as "optimized."
We are proud to say that many of our companies are solidly in the established category, which means they are performing satisfactorily and exactly where we expect most companies to fall.
As companies complete their action items after the evaluation, their completion rates increase, which positively impacts their inspection scores. More completed actions lead to a higher score and potentially lower insurance premiums.
The CORE Score framework fosters a culture of care, continuous improvement, accountability, collaboration, and growth. With this system implemented, we are all eager to see how this tool helps the GROWMARK System achieve a new level of safety.