A strong business is one that offers great service or product and has a strong delivery and communications system. Delivering fantastic service and product to your customers creates profit and grows the business’ reputation. This eventually leads to more business.
With the focus placed on service and product delivery by business owners, safety in the workplace often becomes a secondary consideration. In our heads, we know onsite safety protocols and a solid safety culture are crucial to a business’ strength.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by a recent accident at Dreamworld where four people were killed, even the biggest businesses forget to do safety checks.
It’s understandable safety in the workplace is sometimes forgotten about, but no one wants a Dreamworld situation on their hands. Below are some reasons you should double check your business’ safety protocols.
Damage to employee morale and trust
If an accident occurs onsite, employee morale immediately drops. There is an unspoken expectation when employees turn up to work. Even if a job involves danger, the business owners have done what they must to manage workplace hazards and made it as safe as possible.
If someone is injured or even killed onsite, this unspoken expectation can erode into distrust and uncertainty. This leads to employee stress, which can lead to even more accidents. Employees may not feel treasured by their employers and eventually resign.
Downtime of your business
Injuries and fatalities onsite can either slow your business down or see that it is shut for an indefinite period of time. The most obvious side effect of this is a downward slide in profitability.
If your business is running at a snail’s pace due to an accident, your business’ transactions slow down. If your business is shut down you have no transactions at all. Downtime of your business can also turn your current and potential investors away from you. They’ll look for new partners to work with elsewhere.
Damage to your business’ reputation
A business’ reputation is everything. It’s what draws investors, new business partners and new customers. It’s what keeps current customers, business partners and employees alike in a state of certainty and trust. An accident resulting in injury or fatality can destroy this trust and in turn ruin your reputation in an instant.
It will turn away potential new business partners, new investment and new customers. It will erode the trust of your current partners and employees. The accident can create a stigma around your company and make future business activity much more difficult.
Escalation of insurance premiums
An injury onsite will see your insurance premiums rise. A fatality onsite will see your insurance premiums go through the roof.
Insurance premiums are an ongoing cost and not just once off. Keeping your business operational will cost you more and more, year on year and diminish your profit margins substantially.