The Perks of Staying Safe: How Health and Safety Can Save Your Business Money

Think health and safety is all about stern-faced warnings about workplace risk assessments and watching out for nasty hazards?

Think again. Keeping your workplace safer also makes extremely good business sense. In fact, the HSE’s Judith Hackitt shared a great blog post at the end of the year, which got us thinking about how effective risk management can actually improve productivity – definitely worth a read!

But just in case you were still on the fence – here are some excellent reasons why staying safe can actually boost your bottom line:

Save your days

Did you know that a massive 27.3 million working days were lost between 2014/15 because of workplace injury and illness?

And if that wasn’t enough to get you reeling – the blow all those lost days cost the economy will definitely have you seeing stars. The total cost of all workplace related injuries and ill health added up to £14.3 billion.

So here’s one very obvious reason to make sure your workplace is a safe one. The safer it is – the fewer days you’re likely to lose due to illness or accidents. And that just might save you a lot of money.

Boost your productivity

Colleagues being off sick and an unsafe environment doesn’t exactly add up to a very stimulating and positive work environment.

Even if you manage to avoid losing too many days, not looking out for the well-being of staff could still bite you on your productivity levels.

Instead having proper safety measures – and making sure that workers’ health isn’t affected – means it’s easier for people to do their job quickly and safely, which is going to boost workers’ morale – and your productivity.

Save on insurance and legal costs

If there’s anything last year’s health and safety headlines have taught us – it’s that cutting corners with the rules only ends up hurting your wallet. In a very serious way.

If you’re found to have broken any safety rules or legislation, then you could end up facing a severe penalty of tens or hundreds of thousand pounds.

Even if you avoid a whopping fine, your insurance premiums will still go up, if you don’t have a good standard of health and safety.

So why risk all those extra charges?

Save your reputation

A good reputation is a prized business asset – one you never want to lose.

But while it might take years to build up a reputation of trust and confidence, it could all go to pieces with a serious workplace incident.

After the fines, headlines and bluster have died away, your customers and clients are still going to remember what happened, and they might think twice about using you again.

Do you really want to risk losing them – just to cut a few health and safety corners?

Takeaway points

To remind you of how much you could save by investing in your workplace safety:

• Last year, workplace injuries and illness cost the UK £14.3 billion
• But a safer workplace could boost productivity – and returns – by helping people to do their job more easily
• You could also save on the potential heavy cost of penalties and fines, as well as reduce insurance premiums
• Not to mention – protect your most valuable business asset: your reputation with your customers!

Have any questions about keeping your workplace safe? Give us a shout!

About David Cant

David Cant is a Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner extraordinaire. He has a wealth of Industry experience and is the MD of Veritas Consulting. David also Blogs about Health and Safety here Health and Safety Consultants

His aim is to flavour Health and Safety with integrity, served with a side of humour You can find David on - Twitter and Google also Linkedin