Safety Programs- Why You Can't Afford Not Having One

In Kentucky, we have many manufacturing facilities. Safety is a concern at all of these companies because without safety, accidents can, and do occur.  Safety programs can be one of the biggest assets to the pursuit of a safe work environment.  Through safety programs a company can raise awareness of safe practices, motivate workers to pursue those safe standards on a regular basis, and create an atmosphere of competition for the workers against themselves in pursuing the highest safety standards they can as a team.

Putting safety programs into place can be very simple, cost effective and rewarding. Take the cost of what a claim would be. Imagine if a worker a) does not know a safety standard and b) goes against that safety standard and becomes injured.  The company will be at fault because the safety standard was not met and the worker will need to be compensated for their injury and other damages. This claim alone could be twice as much as putting an effective safety incentive program into place.

Now imagine that the same worker from before had training incentives. For each time he practiced a safe standard he learned on the job, he received points towards gifts or a destination.  This would re-enforce the memorization of these standards, enforce the repetition of these habits, and decrease the chance of him going against a safety standard that could cause him harm and the company monetary distress.  The cost of rewarding him for keeping in line with safety would be far less than compensating him if he was injured because he did not know a safe practice.

Don't underestimate the power of incentives to enforce habits, and raise awareness.  The cost of running a safety program pales in comparison to the cost of a claim because of laziness or not knowing a safety practice.  A program like this could be the difference in thousands of dollars for your company and even the difference between life and death.