Improved Health and Safety can save your company thousands

26 January 2006

Better health and safety can save you thousands
Companies reassessing their health and safety procedures might expect a small initial outlay. Hiring a consultant, installing new, up-to-date equipment or even training staff requires a certain investment. However, a reduction in insurance claims, lower premiums and increased productivity ensure significant long-term financial benefits.

Besides the possibility of incurring legal costs involved in work-related accidents, it's often the hidden ones of covering absences, recruitment, training and production losses that really hit a company's profits. But there are a few cost-effective health and safety steps your business can take to benefit from substantial savings. Please see below for some ways in which you can save yourself some money:

Knowledge is power
Health and safety doesn't have to be complicated, expensive or time consuming. Often, just knowing what to do and how much money it can save you is the first step.

It pays to know the facts
Each year employee accidents and ill-health cost British employers an estimated £3.9 billion to £7.8 billion, of which £910 million to £3,710 million comes from accidental damage to property and equipment. Companies often assumed that their insurance will cover any financial losses. But policies generally tend to fall short when it comes to the costs involved in the actual day to day running of your business.
This shortfall can be quite startling:
Uninsured losses are ten times the cost of insurance premiums paid. (Source: HSE)
Uninsured losses from accidents in smaller firms add up to £315 per employee, per year. (Source: Norwich Union Risk Services)

Some cost implications that are often overlooked include:

Dealing with the incident – Any immediate action means downtime for the injured person and anyone assisting. The time spent administering first aid treatment, a hospita/doctor referral and/or home rest, all result in downtime. Then making the area safe and making machinery serviceable are even more costs for which the business is accountable.
Investigation of the incident – Following on from the initial incident, the first steps to take are spending time reporting the occurance, holding meetings to discuss it and investigating it internally. Then time spent with an HSE, or Local Authority inspector and possibly external consultants' fees to assist with the investigation,  can all rapidly accumulate into hidden costs.
Getting back to business – You then have the task of returning to normality. Rescheduling work, recovering production, repairing damage and cleaning the site are inconveniences which slow production and reduce efficiency. You may also have the costs of hiring replacement tools, people and equipment.
Business costs - Absentee costs are deceptive. Besides the salary of the injured worker, you may also incurr a combination of replacement staff salaries, lost time and reduced productivity. Additionally, you may suffer a drop in quality during this period, all of which add to the escalating costs. Training new or temporary staff, overtime and contract penalties can all be devastating to any business.

Risk Assessments

There is no such thing as a risk free workplace but you can minimise threats to health and safety through risk assessment. The following steps are the key to making health and safety pay:

Step 1: Look for the hazards – It will pay dividends to spend time identifying all the potential hazards.
Step 2: Decide who might be harmed
Step 3: Evaluate the risks and whether existing precautions are adequate, or whether more can be done – It pays to ensure all   eventualities are covered – prevention is always better than cure.
Step 4: Record your findings
Step 5: Review and revise your assessment regularly – especially if anything in the process changes as new hazards may become apparent.

Call us now on 08456 122 144 to find out how we can assist you with your organisational Health and Safety and Risk Assessments. Contact us to receive a free no-obligation quotation.

 
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