One of the toughest jobs we have as safety consultants is to justify why a company should implement a real OSHA-compliant Safety Program.

After reading last week's E-QuickTip, one of our clients wrote me a short email about an experience he had with a company he was working for where efforts he was making to provide weekly safety meetings to the employees were looked at as "a waste of monies."  He went on to say that later he had heard that an employee of the company was injured and the company was dealing with legal issues that were based on the employee's lack of understanding of safety.    

Because it is easy to see safety as another expense rather than an asset, I'd like to take just a few minutes of your time today to point out the real value of workplace safety.  

It is clear that to provide your employees the ability to work in an environment that is free from recognized hazards costs money.  Safety is not cheap. 

Establishing a safety program, providing safety equipment, training your employees, and taking the time to continually inspect your job site for safety compliance are expenditures that you may be tempted to avoid.  Don't!

The above costs, however, are predictable and controllable.

The real costs associated with safety are related to failure to provide a safe workplace.  It's not just the potential OSHA citations and fines, which can be considerable, it is the actual harm that can befall one of your employees; the cost of job interruption; the cost of worker replacement and training; the costs of insurance (workers compensation); the cost of failed bids because of your safety track record; the costs of damaged equipment; the costs of sloppy work; the costs of low morale; the costs of demonstrating to your employees, other contractors, and those who would use your services that you just don't care.

OSHA

An OSHA visit is a breeze when your employees are working safely according to your established safety procedures which are in accordance with OSHA standards.

An OSHA visit "goes south" when it is clear that job site hazards are not being properly addressed.  The inspection takes longer and they dig deeper.  The citations pile up and suddenly you find yourself in a pickle.  Accept the citations, establish a negative history with OSHA, and then get on the safety band-wagon.  Fight the citations, spend an inordinate amount of time and effort defending yourself, and wind up paying possibly (but not necessarily) a reduced fine, and then get on the safety band-wagon.

Harm to an Employee

This is the hardest to take.  Even if no money is involved, there is a cost.  You intuitively know that had you properly prepared and equipped your employee to avoid an accident that the mishap would not have happened.  Workers really do get unnecessarily injured on the job site.  Some get seriously injured.  Some die!  The terrible cost is knowing it could have been avoided.

Job Interruption

Any time an incident occurs on a job site, even a small, relatively minor incident, there is wasted time and associated costs that can never be recovered.  The more serious the accident, the more interruption, the more cost.  It's simple and avoidable.

Worker Replacement

Most contractors do not have the luxury of having "extra" workers just standing around ready to fill in in case of injury.  Sort of like a bench in football.  Job planning (and bidding) mandates that X number of X type of employees can perform this or that task in X amount of time.  Replacing and bringing up to speed a replacement worker comes directly out of the potential profit for the job.  An irreplaceable cost.

Workers Compensation

Workers compensation rates are based on your accident/injury rates (claims).  If you have accidents and injuries and resulting claims, your rates will increase.  What is your EMR?

Failed Bids

More and more owners, general contractors, and construction managers are requiring safety programs and checking OSHA's website to see if the contractors they are hiring have and serious, repeat or willful violations. It makes sense.  They are protecting themselves and protecting the integrity of the job site as a whole.  If you do not have a safety program or have too many OSHA violations, you are not even given a bid opportunity.  If you have a weak, ineffective safety program, they'll still turn you down.  If you have a high accident/incident (EMR) rate - forget it!  Recently, a contractor who was contesting a Willful Citation was denied a bid opportunity because the pending Willful Citation showed up on the OSHA website.  Your history with OSHA is readily available for anyone to see.  Not getting work clearly costs you money.

Damaged Equipment

Using a screwdriver as a chisel may result in a chipped fingernail and broken screwdriver costing a couple of bucks.  Having a scaffold collapse or a crane tip over could easily result in death and costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Please take a moment to share this information with those you work with and for so that everyone can see and better understand the real value of workplace safety for both employees and the employers.

Have you just received your first Safety E-QuickTip or just want to take a look at past issues? Check out our Safety E-QuickTips Archive Page on our website.  

Thanks for Reading and Please - Work Safe This Week!