Most safety experts contend that the cost of safety (COS) is an investment in productivity – and, in the end, the cost of accidents is always higher than the cost of safety.
Many feel the cost of safety is much easier to calculate than the cost of accident at work. The cost of safety can be viewed as a total of:
- The cost of researching and developing your safety program
- Insurance premiums
- Expenditures on salary for safety officers
- The cost of outfitting your staff with personal protective equipment (PPE)
- The cost of running training presentations
While it’s relatively easy to add these figures, no full analysis of the cost of safety is complete without looking at the other side of the coin: the cost of accidents at work.
This calculation is more complex (because it includes unknowns) but understanding the cost of an accident in the workplace is crucial to properly understand the value of safety initiatives.
Safety as a core value treats safety as the most important item. More than that, safety is the commonality behind every choice and action. In other words, our priorities change depending on the situation but our core values usually don’t.
Safety advisers recommend that organizations think of safety as a value and having meaningful safety activities and discussions all the time, not just immediately after someone is injured.
When safety in the workplace is a priority it becomes part of the workplace culture. Organizations can develop this safety culture by creating procedures that are written well and that are easy to understand and follow at all levels of the organization.
It’s also important to have leadership that interacts with employees and quickly resolve identified hazards.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers Cost of Safety: Investing in a Safer Future, a 2-day course where participants learn how to define the Cost of Safety and its components within an organizational context.
Participants also learn how to calculate direct and indirect costs of workplace incidents and safety measures as well as develop and analyze safety budgets and investment strategies for maximum ROI.
This course is intended for safety managers, operations directors, HR professionals, risk assessors, and any key personnel responsible for workplace safety and organizational risk management across all sectors.
For more information, questions, comments, contact us.