What are the Cost of Injuries?

What is the cost?

The cost of an injury must be broken down into two components:

Visible cost, these include;

• Medical Bills
• Worker’s Compensation Pay Out (disability, permanent, partial, etc)
• Reserves (money set aside to pay future medical bills)
• Invisible (Hidden) cost, these include;
• Overtime (cover for the associate)
• Loss of an experienced and trained employee (can be extremely valuable)
• Management resources
• Higher insurance premiums (long term cost – carried out for 3 years)
• Loss of confidence in the company (public, customers, and associates)
• Customer dissatisfaction (who wants to do business with a company with a bad reputation)
• Poor Quality (if associates are not following the safety rules then the odds are they aren’t following quality procedures either)
  

Of course with all of these individual issues we come to the greatest issue of all, a death. Having to attend the funeral of a fellow associate and attempt to comfort a grieving widow is one of the most difficult actions a leader may have to face in her/his career. But, this training is not designed to pull on heart strings; therefore we will only discuss this topic in the training when it relates to UnSafe Acts of associates.

The hidden costs associated with injuries have the greatest impact upon an organization, this is directly related to the fact that they are hidden and go unnoticed until their impact becomes unbearable.

Next Post: Are all Injuries Preventable?