Andy Jorgensen said: My company, as should all companies, takes employee health and wellness very seriously. We spend a lot of money making sure of that. It's a lot cheaper than paying a fine or lawsuit in the long run.
Amen, Andy.
With the cost of bringing a time-loss/disabling workman's comp claim to closure averaging 10-40k, it makes sense to me to be proactive on the employee safety front. Your insurers will bear the brunt of the treatment expenses, but your premiums will increase within a couple of years of the claim which directly affects your companies bottom line. Additionally, how much does it cost, in time and resources, to pick up the workload of an injured employee unable to perform their duties? We are a small HOA course with a budget around 500k. I annually budget $1600 for my departments safety supplies/expense and rarely exceed that amount.
We are fortunate enough (wink, wink) to have three OSHA compliance officers living in our HOA. Officer Nice (no kidding that's his last name) on his way to work on morning, noticed one of our road crew guys out of his truck, within the road right-of-way, not wearing his safety vest. He immediately pulled over, identified himself and opened an investigation. This violation is considered a potentially fatal violation carrying a fine of $700 - 15k depending on the circumstances. The employee complied with the officers initial request immediately by donning his safety vest. Upon meeting with the officer, during the investigations opening interview, he informed me that this action by the employee, and having our training manuals, safety committee minuets and training records readily available would put or fine at the low end of the scale. We could have contested the fine, but that would have ended up costing us more than just accepting our mistake and paying the fine. This type of issue could happen to any one of you, at any time, it doesn't take an injury or complaint for OSHA to open an investigation. So you can see how just one little infraction could have cost our company a considerable amount of money. We all, including upper management, need to realize employee safety can be a revenue center rather than an expense. By going two years without a claim or recordable injury, we received a rebate check from our workman's comp carrier and a significant premium reduction for the next two years.
Don't be afraid of compliance, it's part of our jobs to ensure a safe workplace for all our employees and with all the free resource's available to us, it is not that difficult to accomplish, just some time and effort. Personally, I don't know how I could live with myself if one of my employees were permanently disabled, or perish the thought, killed on the job from a lack of proper training or available PPE on my part. JMO