What are the financial benefits of good health & safety management?
In 2020/2021, there were 1.7 million people that suffered from a work-related illness while 441,000 workers sustained an injury at work. Health and safety need to be a priority in terms of providing a safe work environment for your employees and for legal compliance, but did you also know that there are financial benefits to prioritising health and safety?
Reduce illness & injury
First, you will find that improving health and safety will reduce the amount of illness and injuries sustained by your team. In addition to keeping productivity high, this can also reduce healthcare costs as well as the costs involved in training new workers or getting current staff to work overtime to compensate for the vacancies.
Illness and injury can disrupt the business in many different ways, especially when there then has to be an investigation and potentially legal consequences. By increasing health and safety measures, you can avoid the headache of illness and injury and keep your workers happy and safe.
Reduce turnover
As a business owner, you want to do what you can to reduce employee turnover. Employee turnover is costly as you are constantly having to find, onboard and train new staff, which can cost money and hamper productivity. When you take health and safety seriously, staff will be more likely to stay put and feel happy and safe while at work. Keep in mind that it is not just staff that have fallen ill or had an accident that many end up leaving if health and safety are not at a high standard. People need to feel safe in their roles, so if you do not take steps to create a safe environment then it is understandable that they will seek a new role.
Output loss
When a worker suffers an injury or gets sick, it is likely that they will need time off work. A report from The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work found that 2.4 million non-fatal accidents needed at least 4 days off of work, which can greatly impact the output and productivity of the entire operation. These production disturbances are frustrating because they are usually avoidable, such as equipping your workers with essential PPE equipment like safety glasses. This can then affect morale, which can further lower productivity.
Providing a high level of health and safety is important in terms of looking after your staff and allowing them to feel safe, but there are also financial benefits of health and safety that should be considered. By creating a safe work environment, you can avoid output losses, reduce employee turnover and keep productivity levels high. Sickness and injury can be costly in more ways than one, but often these are avoidable when health and safety are prioritised.