Managing fair work practices, health and safety is not only a question of legal compliance or avoiding losses linked to accidents at work. Good E&OHS performance can improve workers motivation and productivity, reduce absenteeism, help businesses attract talent, and secure investments. Good employment and OHS performance is key to reputation management, and often seen as a crucial element of responsible business conduct.
At the heart of the business case is the issue of cost. Costs feature both as the financial benefits and savings that may be achieved through safe and healthy work. A failure to operate safely then results in a myriad of further costs being imposed on the organization and on the broader society.
Employer costs from the accidents included salary costs for replacement staff or overtime payments, production and productivity losses, retraining costs, personal injury claim compensation, repair bills, medical expenses and increased supervision.
Safe and healthy work offers many benefits for organizations. Most widely recognized is, of course, the ability to avoid failure costs associated with work-related injury and illness.
All organizations have a legal duty to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of their workers and ensure that the health and safety of other persons is not put at risk from work carried out as part of the undertaking. The primary duty requires organizations to:
As such, organizations need to adopt proactive risk management strategies in minimizing the potential for hazards in the workplace.
The moral case for health and safety for health and safety relates to ethics and responsible behaviour. It is the moral duty of any employer to keep the workplace safe for the employees. Moral reasons are based on the concept of an employer owing a duty of reasonable care to his employees.
If the workplace is safe and workers are feeling safe they will enjoy coming to work as the workplace will be a safe and happy place to work. This will not only create an enabling environment for productivity but will result in the profit of the business.