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A business has many different responsibilities. This includes responsibilities to its paying customers, responsibilities to investors, responsibilities to distribution partners and many more. However, the top priority for all employers should always be maintaining a completely safe work environment. Operational safety should always be the number one concern regarding all business processes a company undertakes. Below are just a few of the reasons why it is so important.
It’s the Right Thing to Do From an Ethical Standpoint
Over the years, there has been a de-emphasis on the importance of ethics in business. With many companies putting a laser focus on profits and quarterly returns above everything else, ethics often feels like an afterthought. However, just because that is the case does not mean that business owners are above moral reproach.
Not protecting the well-being of your workers by instituting strong safety guidelines and procedures is one of the worst things a company can do. In fact, it’s part of the reason why industries developed a very bad reputation during the industrial revolution since the owners cared little for the workers that were killed. The safety and lives of your employees matter.
It’s the Right Thing to Do From a Legal Standpoint
Due to the backlash against industrialists during the early 1900s, many laws, rules, and regulations have been enacted over a period of 100 years to help ensure that business owners do take the proper steps to protect the health and safety of their workers. Today, one of the biggest forces in regards to enforcing workplace safety is OSHA, which stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
It is a government agency under the jurisdiction of the US Department of Labor. If you want to conform to the law, you need to ensure that your company is adhering to all OSHA safety standards relevant to your industry. Not doing so is illegal and will result in serious fines and penalties.
It’s the Right Thing to Do From a Strategic Standpoint
If your company develops a reputation for having a dangerous workplace, you’re not going to be able to attract top talent. While some people will work dangerous jobs, they tend to do so because they don’t have better options for obtaining the same level of income. Those with more skills, education, and expertise may end up avoiding your company like the plague.
This will harm the future prospects of your company for the long term. Instead, make a firm investment in safety via steps such as obtaining data science tools for safety risk management that will allow you to keep better track of the status of safety hazards in your workplace. It’s a simply good business strategy to do so.
It’s the Right Thing to Do From a PR Standpoint
Workplace injuries and deaths can also quickly tornado into public relations nightmares. While you may be able to recover from the accident itself, it can be much harder to recover from a significant PR hit that could end up affecting your company’s reputation for years or even decades into the future.
Word of mouth can be quite powerful for businesses from a marketing standpoint. Negative word of mouth can be crippling. This is much more so the case today thanks to the interconnectivity of social media. Bad news regarding workplace safety can now reach millions of people in a matter of minutes.
It’s the Right Thing to Do From a Financial Standpoint
Protecting the health of your workers will also protect the financial health of your business. Workers are huge investments of time and resources. Just the amount of money it takes to train new employees can be staggering. Preventing workplace accidents also means avoiding hikes in workers’ compensation and disability insurance coverage.
It also means avoiding costly lawsuits. If your workplace is dangerous enough, you could end up getting sued out of existence by a class-action lawsuit. Overall, it’s not only wise from a moral standpoint to protect your workforce. It’s also wise from a financial standpoint as well.
The safety of your employees should always be your number one priority as an employer. You should always do what you can to increase the operational security of all your business processes. If you don’t, your company could pay dearly as a result. A business with a dangerous workplace is highly unlikely to survive for the long term.