Why We Should Manage Workplace Health and Safety
Three arguments carry the case for managing health and safety: it is the right thing to do, the law demands it, and accidents cost real money. This element looks at each one, then at the people inside and outside an organisation who share the work.
Pages in this chapter (1 of 5)
1.1 Morals and Money
Moral and societal expectations of good standards of health and safety
Morals are the shared rules of behaviour that a society uses to decide what counts as right and what counts as wrong.
Most practitioners agree that the moral argument should come first when an organisation decides to control risk. Without it, an employer may slip into treating the wellbeing of the workforce as less important than profit. Nobody should be hurt or made ill simply because of the job they do. The main moral reasons for providing a safe workplace are listed below.
- Duty of care. An employer who shows genuine concern for the safety and health of staff is meeting the duty of care owed to them.
- A right to a safe workplace. Every worker should be able to go home at the end of each shift in the same health in which they arrived.
- Harm is not part of the job. Death, serious injury or illness caused by work is plainly wrong and cannot be treated as a condition of employment.
- Nobody wants the guilt. Imagine learning that an employee was harmed because you skipped a basic precaution. Few people could live comfortably with that.
- A better workforce. People who work in a safe and healthy environment are generally happier and more productive.
- The effect on the individual. Beyond pain and suffering, an incident can leave a person with a lasting phobia, reduce their ability to earn for a time or permanently, and cause a temporary or permanent disability.
- The effect on the family. No manager wants to phone a household to say that a father, son, sister or daughter has been hurt at work. Families can be changed for ever by a death at the workplace.
- The cost to society. Every society expects safe working conditions. Those expectations rise over time, and they are usually turned into laws and standards.
The financial cost of incidents
Incident costs fall into two overlapping pairs: insured against uninsured, and direct against indirect. Understanding both pairs shows why the true bill is far larger than most managers expect.
Insured and uninsured costs
Insurance may cover some incident costs, but it does not remove the full financial consequences. HSE identifies uninsured losses and reputational damage among the business costs of poor health and safety. The balance depends on the incident and the policy; there is no universal ratio of uninsured losses to insured costs or premiums.
Insured costs are costs covered by the relevant policy, subject to its terms, limits and exclusions. Medical expenses, compensation or property repairs may be covered, but none should be assumed insured without checking. Uninsured costs fall on the organisation and can include:
- time lost by the injured person
- time lost by colleagues who stop work to help or watch
- loss of efficiency when skills leave the team
- lower morale and possibly lower output
- time spent by supervisors dealing with the event
- hiring and retraining costs
- damage to plant and equipment, and the repairs that follow
- lost production and delays
- spoiled or lost product and raw material
- overtime and temporary labour
- time spent assisting the insurer's investigation
- emergency supplies
- hire of replacement equipment
- fines
- lost contracts
- legal fees
- damage to the reputation of the business
Direct and indirect costs
Direct costs are immediate expenses that can be measured and that arise straight from the accident. Examples:
- fines imposed by criminal courts
- first-aid treatment
- sick pay for the injured worker
- repair or replacement of damaged equipment and buildings
- lost or damaged product
- the cost of immediate emergency treatment or response directly attributable to the incident
Indirect costs are the hidden expenses that sit underneath an accident. They cannot be measured at once, yet they affect productivity, operations and finances. Examples:
- productive staff pulled away to investigate, write reports, visit hospital, support relatives or attend court
- overtime or temporary labour used to recover disrupted production
- falling morale, which drags down productivity, quality and efficiency
- recruiting and training temporary or replacement workers
- customers losing goodwill after late production and late orders
- damage to public image and business reputation
- damaged industrial relations, which may end in strikes or other industrial action
Summary notes for Element 1 · Cheat sheet · Glossary. A study aid, not published or endorsed by NEBOSH.