Business Cost Savings Through Safety
The easiest way for a company to make more money is to decrease labor costs. And the easiest way for an employee to make more money is to work longer hours. So why do companies and employees consistently choose to spend more on safety?
Unfortunately, we’re wired with a deep-seated need for instant gratification. It takes time, patience, and effort before any kind of gain—financial or otherwise—can be realized. Which means that while you can see improvements in your business’ profitability almost immediately after implementing safety measures, it might take years before any gains are made at the individual level.
This is especially true in the work setting, where we often fail to see the connection between cost savings and safety measures. We don’t expect our employer to thank us for wearing a safety harness while working on a construction site—but we do hope that that harness will prevent an injury and keep our paycheck coming in every week. In fact, there’s no guarantee that our efforts today will actually save money for the company—or for ourselves.
But what if there were a way to guarantee that your promotion or raise was directly related to how well you implement safety measures? It turns out, there is. The key is knowing how to measure and calculate the costs of accidents and injuries within your industry.
So what is the first step toward decreasing costs by eliminating workplace injuries and fatalities? Calculating the cost savings associated with injury and accident prevention. To do this, you must first stop measuring your company’s expenses (labor costs, health care premiums, workman comp) in dollars. You must also acknowledge that many workers’ compensation claims or personal injury lawsuits are not about about you; rather, they are about other people that suffer at your workplace. It is important to remember that you can’t save money by saving lives.