Cost of Safety: A Proactive Approach Is a Good Investment

Determining the cost of safety should take into consideration a realistic view of the cost of accidents.

The 2019 cost of injury in the U.S. was $4.2 trillion, according to a report in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The costs include spending on health care, lost work productivity, as well as estimates of cost for lost quality of life and lives lost.

The total cost of work injuries in 2021 was $167.0 billion. This figure includes wage and productivity losses of $47.4 billion, medical expenses of $36.6 billion, and administrative expenses of $57.5 billion.

This total also includes employers’ uninsured costs of $13.8 billion, including the value of time lost by workers other than those with disabling injuries who are directly or indirectly involved in injuries, and the cost of time required to investigate injuries, write up injury reports, and so forth.

The actual cost of safety training per employee varies significantly between companies based on industry, size, and budget.

Experts in the area of cost of safety expect that companies on average spend $1,111 on training per employee. This can be broken down even further to roughly $20/hr. of training when compared with the 55.4 hrs. of training provided per employee on average.

But the size of an organization will skew numbers.

Many companies look at safety strictly from a compliance standpoint, looking only to meet bare minimum requirements. While this makes sense given the astronomical number of regulations they must meet, it is ultimately shortsighted.

Unfortunately, a bare minimum approach often leads to underinvestment in safety, driving up costs later when businesses are forced to use valuable resources reacting to incidents.

Taking into account both direct and indirect costs of safety incidents, a proactive approach focused on safety culture and prevention is far more cost-effective.

Frequent plant floor inspections are a key tool for addressing this challenge, allowing companies to: 

• Verify compliance with safety protocols and regulatory requirements 
• Monitor known hazards and identify new ones 
• Verify effectiveness of corrective actions and ensure gains are held in place 
• Identify gaps in safety training programs 
• Foster more face-to-face conversations about safety 
• Demonstrate management’s commitment to safety to gain employee buy-in 

Want to learn more? Tonex offers Cost of Safety: Investing in a Safer Future, a 2-day course where participants learn how to define the Cost of Safety and its components within an organizational context.

Participants also learn how to calculate direct and indirect costs of workplace incidents and safety measures as well as develop and analyze safety budgets and investment strategies for maximum ROI.

This course is intended for safety managers, operations directors, HR professionals, risk assessors, and any key personnel responsible for workplace safety and organizational risk management across all sectors.

For more information, questions, comments, contact us.