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What Do Accidents Really Cost?
Most organizations recognize there are hidden costs associated to
workplace accidents. One way of thinking about this is to liken
these costs to an iceberg in that 4/5's of the total cost is hidden
from sight.
The British Columbia WCB website has a Cost Calculator that allows
you to calculate these hidden costs right down to the point of determining
how many working days will be required to recover these costs. You
can print a report as a stand-alone document suitable for circulation
in your organization.
My experience has been that once you show upper management what
the true costs are of a particular accident you typically get two
different reactions. One is a positive response that shakes management
up and drives home the realization they need to pay more attention
to their health and safety program.
Unfortunately, the other response is that management doesn't want
to hear this type of bad news information as they don't have time
for safety and are prepared to accept accidents as a cost of doing
business.
Next time you have an incident involving some time loss and property
damage use this calculator to see what the true costs might be.
Then you have to decide who in management might be interested in
this and how they will react. Good Luck!
http://www.healthandsafetycentre.org/sc/calculator/default.htm
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