The True Cost of Workplace Incidents
YOU CAN’T MEASURE WHAT DOESN’T HAPPEN
Unfortunately, you will never know the cost of the incident that didn’t occur. But this also means your organization will never feel the effects of that injury; cost association, worker’s compensation rate increases, potential loss of work, inability to qualify for projects due to injury rates, and decreased worker morale which translates into production loss.
COST OF INCIDENTS
There are numerous costs associated with incidents, depending on type and frequency but here are some cost factors to consider in various incident examples; (not all elements are applicable to every business or every incident)
- Loss of production from injured worker
- Damage to property
- Damage to vehicles
- Environmental damage
- Drug & Alcohol testing costs
- Cost of medical treatment and/or transportation
- Investigation costs
- Incident reporting costs (to clients, governing authorities, etc.)
- Loss of production
- Increased insurance rates
- Increased worker’s compensation rates
- Cost of corrective action
- Cost of clean-up
- Cost of implementing new processes
- Cost of developing new programs
- Re-training costs
The actual costs associated with these incidents depend on numerous contributing factors to the event but the costs are unnecessary because every incident is preventable.
CORRECTIVE ACTION
Once an event has occurred, there are several immediate actions that are required to prevent reoccurrence;
- Temporarily suspend the work while determining root cause
- Implement immediate controls and allow work to resume (if possible to do so safely)
- Verify controls are preventing reoccurrence and make necessary changes to work practices/procedures
- Communicate the change in process/procedure and retrain workers
- Continue to monitor compliance with changes implemented
The largest cost paid for incidents is the injuries and deaths sustained by our workforce. The most invaluable, irreplaceable asset to the organization has no dollar figure value. Invest in safety, invest in your people and send your employees home safe at the end of every single shift.
