Workplace safety policies should protect life and limb and help businesses avoid fines, citations, repair costs, interruptions, and obstacles in production. Workplace injuries can impact a business silently and significantly, with many business owners not realizing the full scale of their cost until it is too late. To better understand the seriousness of workplace injuries and their effects, let’s examine the often overlooked and hidden costs that businesses incur when they happen.
Loss of Morale
Employees can lose morale if their coworkers regularly get injured at work. This loss of morale may stem from a fear of them being next, which can have additional cascading effects such as loss of productivity. Workers want to feel safe at work, a primal need that drives their happiness and impacts morale.
Loss of Product
When injurious accidents like fires and chemical spills happen, any products stored nearby will be affected. This is especially true for businesses that own warehouses or store significant product quantities on their premises.
In addition to catering to their worker’s injuries, businesses must also replace the lost product. With the money coming out of the business’s revenues or bank accounts, this can be a significant setback that can take some time to recover from.
Employee Replacement Costs
If a worker is so injured that they cannot return to work, the business must carry out a hiring exercise to find their replacement. Recruiting has become very expensive in recent years, with reports indicating that it costs about £4000 for a business to replace one worker.
Once hired, businesses also incur onboarding and training costs. The employee has to be taught everything they need to know to do their work as expected, and they also have to be provided with additional training to fill any knowledge gaps they may have.
Reputation Damage
Businesses with poor safety records have a poor reputation. No company wants to do business with another that does not care for its workers. This type of damage can cause a domino effect where the business keeps losing customers and contracts due to its poor reputation.
Preventing this from happening in the first place is the best thing businesses can do. They can do this with the help of health & safety consultants who carry out risk assessments and tell businesses the areas they need to improve. They also provide worker training and guidelines so businesses can carry out regular health and safety risk assessments themselves later.
Legal Costs
While insurance will take care of the cost of most injuries and damages, workers still have a right to make personal injury claims with the help of a solicitor if their injuries are due to someone else’s negligence. While taking such legal action will mostly have financial implications, it can affect businesses in other ways. A typical one is the loss of reputation and trust discussed above.
Why they affect the individual the most, workplace injuries can also have serious consequences for businesses. Businesses can incur significant costs in different ways, including having to hire and onboard new workers, property, product and equipment damage, and fees or citations. Businesses should, therefore, protect their employees and eliminate the risks that cause such injuries to avoid these costs.
