There are countless companies in Australia that don’t consider work health & safety as a worthwhile investment for their company.
As a business owner or PCBU have a primary duty of care to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of the workers and others affected by your business. (WHS Act 2011)
Apart from the legislative requirement stated above which we are all obliged to adhere to, consider the following if you tend to avoid investing in the way your business manages its WHS obligations:
- Australia’s most reputable and successful companies share the view that work health & safety excellence should be promoted in every way possible. Companies of all sizes strive to be recognised for their efforts in improving work health & safety in their workplace through Safe Work Australia’s biennial safety awards program along with other peak body award schemes
- Investing in health and safety in your workplace promotes business productivity and efficiency, reduced staff absenteeism, lower staff turnover, better quality of work, and improved culture and communications
- External stakeholders (such as shareholders or investors, customers and suppliers) take an increasing interest if your health and safety performance is flourishing. A business that is struggling to maintain a safe operating record will be punished severely by their stakeholders which will inevitably affect the company’s bottom line
- Continually improving your WHS practices can also help you win more tenders and gain more work from your competitors who’s WHS system is not as well established
- Realised business efficiencies as a result of effective health and safety initiatives also have strong links to better company environmental performance
- Robust incident investigations tend to show that most incidents are easily preventable by taking relatively simple and inexpensive measures. An effective incident investigation is conducted immediately after the incident has occurred. Delayed and poorly led investigations will lead to extensive company losses. A good incident investigation system will identify key contributing factors which led to the incident. This enables the company to effectively identify and implement reliable control measures which aims to prevent a reoccurrence of the incident. Putting control measures, training and monitoring in place may cost time and money but these are a business-critical investment as valuable as any other investment in your company
- Preventing incidents and work related illnesses or injuries is actually even more important when your company is faced with financial hardship, such as trading through an economic recession. It is in these times that cutting back and avoiding losses becomes even more important to protect your company’s revenue stream
- Having a full-time staff member or consultant who is qualified in managing your WHS management systems is far better than giving more responsibility to an existing staff member who already has too much work in other areas of the business such as HR or Administration. More often than not, the worker wearing multiple hats is under qualified for the WHS role and will simply crumble under the pressure
Why put your business at risk! By optimising how your business manages its WHS processes, the expense will no longer be an expense. It will be an investment for your company’s future. #SafetyConsulting #BusinessManagement #BusinessOptimisation
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