Cost of Safety/Investment in Profit
What's the bang for your buck for your safety personnel? Sure, they do your toolbox talks and your worker's compensation costs go down, but is it worth it? Safety is a good investment, but you can't easily calculate employee satisfaction and retention immediately. However, the numbers do show up over time. When accounting for safety's financial impact, remember to consider safety's positive affect on employee productivity. A good safety program also instills pride in the workplace, which contributes to productivity and retention. To put this in management language, loss control has economic factors — possible losses, returns from insurance, cost of insurance and cost of accident prevention. If accident prevention is based on economics alone, the rate of return on investment is low.

Determining the cost of safety is very simple. Use the amount of sales that must be generated to pay for an incident. Use your BLS incident rates, average costs per incident and direct safety and health costs. When we think about a preventable incident, we must examine: medical costs; lost wages; worker's compensation insurance; death; hospital treatment; job delay; permanent disability; overtime on the job to get back on schedule; damage to buildings, vehicles and machinery; legal fees; stopped production; third-party investigation; fines; cancelled contracts; hiring replacement staff; litigation; loss of experience and expertise; lower morale; loss of image and goodwill; and business interruptions. Clearly, preventable incidents are costly.

Safety plans are necessary. Yes, they are a legal requirement, but firms that make a conscious effort toward creating a positive safety culture will find their safety programs go far beyond fulfilling the letter of the law. Companies committed to the long-term process of an outstanding safety program reap big dividends over time — and that's a benefit no firm can afford to ignore.

Sidebar: Elements of a Safety Program
A good safety program includes the following:

• Management Support
• Hazard recognition and control
• Communicating safety goals
• Emergency action planning
• Incident investigation
• Job safety analysis and safety training
• Safety orientation for new employees
• Hazard communications (MSDS)
• Safety inspections
• Safety teams and committees
• PPE
• Ergonomics
• Recordkeeping
• Employee involvement

About the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA: TCA was founded in 1986 to improve the quality and acceptance of site cast Tilt-Up construction, a construction method in which concrete wall panels are cast on-site and tilted into place. Tilt-Up construction is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States, combining the advantages of reasonable cost with low maintenance, durability, speed of construction and minimal capital investment. For more information about the TCA, visit www.tilt-up.org.