Element – 1.1 (Morals and Money)

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Introduction to Key Terms

• Health – absence of disease or ill health.
• Safety – absence of risk of serious personal injury.
• Welfare – access to basic facilities.

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Group Exercise

Why might the management of an organization not consider health and safety to be a priority?

Group Syndicate Exercise – Answers

Key points include:

• Competes with other business aims:
  • Requires time and resources.
• Seen as a “cost” to business:
  • Ignorance of true costs of injury/illness.
• Ignorance of legal duties.
• Ignorance of hazards.

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Barriers to Good Standards

• Complexity of the workplace.
• Conflicting demands:
  • Timescales.
  • Standards.
  • Budgets.
• Behavioral issues:
  • People failing to act as desired, or making mistakes.

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Why Manage Health and Safety?

• Moral reasons
• Financial (or Economic) reasons
• Legal (or social) reasons

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The Moral Reason for Managing Health and Safety

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Global statistics from the International Labor Organization (ILO) Safe Work Programme:

• Over 350,000 work-related fatal accidents each year.
• 2.75 million work-related fatalities each year.
• 2.4 million fatalities from occupational diseases.
• 270 million accidents and 160 million diseases a year due to work.
• 4% of global GDP is lost.

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Group Exercise

An employee at your workplace has been seriously injured in a workplace accident.
In groups, list the possible effects and implications of this accident on the:

• Injured employee.
• Company.
• Line manager.

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Group Syndicate Exercise – Answers

Effect on Injured Employee:

• Pain and suffering
• Lost time/wages
• Impact on family
• On-going impact on work

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Effect on the company:

• Payment of sick pay
• Overtime cover for employee
• Recruitment costs for replacement
• Insurance claims / Excess
• Fines/prosecutions
• Increased insurance premiums.

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Effect on the line manager:

• Loss of skills from team
• Time and cost of retraining replacement
• Effect of overtime cover on shifts
• Reputation of line manager

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The Financial Reason for Managing Health and Safety

• Personal Injury accidents,  worker ill health and property damage cost money.
• Costs may be:
  • Direct – measurable costs arising directly from accidents.
  • Indirect – arise as a consequence of the event but may not directly involve money. Often difficult to quantify.

H&S failure can affect the broader economy, as well as individual companies.

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Group Discussion

• An employee has been injured at work.
• Identify potential:
  • Direct costs of the accident.
  • Indirect costs of the accident.

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Direct Cost

• First-aid treatment.
• Worker sick pay.
• Compensation payable to the victim.
• Repairs to, or replacement of, damaged equipment and buildings.
• Lost or damaged product.
• Lost production time whilst dealing with the injury.
• Overtime to make up for lost time.
• Fines in the criminal courts.
• Costs associated with the rehabilitation of the injured worker.

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Indirect Cost

• Loss of staff from productive duties in order to investigate the incident, prepare reports, undertake hospital visits, deal with relatives, attend court proceedings.
• Loss of staff morale.
• Cost of remedial action following an investigation.
• Compliance with any enforcement notice served.
• Cost of recruiting and training temporary or replacement labour.
• General difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff as an indirect result of the accident.
• Loss of goodwill of customers.
• Damage to public image and business reputation.

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Insured and Uninsured Costs

Insured Costs

• Fire.
• Worker injury/death.
• Medical costs.

Uninsured Costs

• Loss of raw materials due to accidents.
• Sick pay.
• Overtime.
• Equipment repairs.
• Lost materials.

(Image illustration: £1 visible insured cost vs £8–£36 hidden uninsured costs, like an iceberg.)

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Employers’ Responsibilities

Everybody is responsible for health and safety – but most of the responsibility lies with the employer to provide:

• Safe place of work.
• Safe plant and equipment.
• Safe systems of work.
• Training, supervision and competency of staff.

(Safety sign: SAFETY FIRST)

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End of Section 1.1 Exercise

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1. What are the three main reasons for managing health and safety ?

Answer:

• Moral – To prevent harm and protect people.
• Legal – To comply with laws and regulations.
• Financial – To avoid the high costs of accidents and ill health.

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2. What should an employer provide to ensure health and safety?

Answer:

• Safe place of work
• Safe plant and equipment
• Safe systems of work
• Training, supervision and competency of staff

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