In this episode, Joe and Jen cover all of the tangible costs of an injury, but dive deep into the intangible costs that injuries bring that are typically not calculated. These underlying costs can cause the start of a cycle that can end up repeating for years to come. Is your business in one of these cycles? Episode summary below:
Cost of Workplace Injuries:
This episode focuses on the cost of workplace injuries, highlighting both tangible and intangible expenses such as medical bills, management time, lost productivity, and knowledge gaps.
Management Time:
Injuries lead to additional management responsibilities, including investigations, retraining, and compensating for absent employees, which disrupts regular workflows.
Loss of Productivity:
When injuries occur, productivity is impacted. Managers often spend 100% of their time running the business rather than improving it, and the absence of skilled workers further affects operations.
Employee Morale and Retention:
Extended work hours and the stress of compensating for injured colleagues cause employee fatigue, reducing morale, increasing turnover, and lowering engagement.
Knowledge Gaps:
Injured workers often possess critical skills that cannot be easily replaced. Their absence creates knowledge gaps, especially in specialized areas like maintenance, which can lead to further risks and inefficiencies.
Fatigue and Mental Health:
Fatigue due to extended work periods and increased workloads without recovery time heightens the risk of injuries and affects employees' mental health.
Customer and Public Relations:
Injuries can lead to bad PR and strain customer relations, adding pressure to the business to maintain productivity while addressing safety concerns.
Regulatory and Legal Costs:
Managing workers' compensation claims, regulatory compliance, and potential legal fees adds to the financial burden caused by injuries.
Proactive Prevention:
The podcast emphasizes the importance of preventing injuries by improving communication, addressing risks early, and ensuring employees feel heard to avoid burnout and maintain safety.
Closing Remarks:
Hosts Joe and Jen Allen remind listeners to assess all costs (tangible and intangible) associated with workplace injuries, encouraging businesses to prioritize safety not only for moral reasons but also to maintain control over their operations.
This video is intended for educational purposes. Solutions offered are not designed to take the place of an attorney or medical professional, and should not be taken as legal or medical advice. It is recommended that viewers consult a safety consultant, medical provider or an occupational safety legal team as applicable to help navigate their specific circumstances.
Episode Transcript
This week we're continuing our cost series and
this week we're specificallytalking about the cost of
injuries.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
From my new office.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
From coming to you live.
Well, not live, but coming toyou from his new office All
right, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
everyone.
Never had an office 24 years.
I finally have one and we'redoing a podcast in it.
This is awesome.
We're going to break down whatall of the variables include.
So first one, management time.
Yeah, that's the one that noone calculates.
We get caught up in work compand the medical bill and how
(00:41):
many days they're restrictedduty or there's a lost time they
away from work.
What about all the managementtime?
Yeah, or the employees timethat all just got shifted?
That's the.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
that's a huge cost so there's the time of I'm going
around and I'm doing aninvestigation, I'm maybe doing
some interviews, I'm pullingthose employees out of their
normal I'm finding documentationthose.
Yeah, I'm running down trainingdocuments and programs.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I still keep it.
The floor's running.
So now I got to fill them withyou to my job.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
And I got to retrain you almost that afternoon Cause
you haven't done a while, but Istill got to do all that while
I'm managing this.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, so it's a huge cost.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It's staying.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
it's Saturdays, it's Sundays, and some of you are
like what's new?
I'm already doing those butit's just one more thing, which
means something else usuallyfalls off because we're focused
on this.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Absolutely.
So you know that drives us tothe next cost.
Yeah, loss of business, loss ofproductivity.
Yeah, loss of productivity,absolutely so now that manager's
time 80% of their day issupposed to be running the
business.
20 making it better.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Now you just made 100 of their day trying to run the
business absolutely, and, and sowe're also working on timelines
that we didn't necessarilycreate yeah, in the next three
days, yeah, so we've got to dofour hours yeah, so we have to
report the incident with thatwithin a certain amount of time.
We've got to complete anincident report and
investigation within a certainamount of hours.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
There's all these timelines that start kicking in,
but it's the holidays and Ithought we had a special going
out at this plant and we weregoing to be selling awesome
cakes for Halloween.
Well, you still got to do thatnow.
Awesome On top of everythingelse Because you don't think
about it.
People's minds are all over themap on this stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah.
So it's definitely andabsolutely management time.
And then the loss of theproductivity that we're now
shifting the focus away.
We're not improving thebusiness, we're not making it
better and we're not runningmore efficiently.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Right, and now that person does get hurt and they,
they can't work for a few weeks.
Yep, there's the work.
You've lost the knowledge ofthat person.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
The, the they had.
Now you've taken that expertout of that position, and now
there's no way to have the exactsame.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I'm filling with whoever I can in that moment.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Right when I'm running short, you've lost the
knowledge of how they run.
The machine has a hiccup everyseven times.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
You know, so they know how it runs.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
This is especially critical with my maintenance and
my refrigeration teams.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Absolutely, you have two maintenance some of these
plants on weekends, if one ofthem's out now the other one's
problems yeah, you, you can'twrite a procedure for everything
they're gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That knowledge is gone during that time and you
have that gap, which means youhave risked someone else not
having an injury yeah, so firstI'm running shorthanded, right,
because I may not be able toreplace that entity with, you
know, whatever they're doing, somaybe I'm just running
shorthanded.
I don't have somebody that day,so now that's adding extra
stress to other people in thatdepartment on that line within
(03:36):
the maintenance team.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So now I have Saturday soccer.
Now I can't be off Saturdaybecause we had an injury and now
we're running longer because westill got the count.
We got to get out, but now I'mworking more hours.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, or we didn't get to a certain project, or we
couldn't you know we couldn't dothe repair and maintenance
because it takes two people.
But we couldn't schedule itbecause we're short.
So all these things startcycling snowballing, yeah, which
that then affects, from the HRside, my retention and turnover,
my morale, my engagement.
So people start becoming not asengaged in what's going on.
(04:08):
They start.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I'm trying to get through the shift and go home,
so I really care abouteverything else that day.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, they're not satisfied with their work
environment because things aregetting harder.
They're already maybe tough andnow it's worse.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
There's more.
It was my fifth day I'msupposed to be off.
Now it's my sixth day I justwant to go home.
And now and before you know it,it's a direct spiral, yep.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
So now we're looking at fatigue of the existing
employees who are doing more andthey haven't had that time off
to recover, recuperate or cleartheir minds from, you know, the
mental health, so that's almostan ergo issue in itself yeah if
you think about that, we did anepisode a while back on ergo,
but that's, that's one yeah isit now?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
I'm just worn out because it's been six, seven
days.
I wasn't planning, I planningon it.
I never get the day to recover.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
My mental health now is affected.
Yep, because now I'm missingthe holidays, I'm missing the
Sunday, I'm missing the things Ischeduled to do because someone
else had an injury.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
My spouse is aggravated because I'm not there
, and when I am there I'm morefatigued, I'm more tired.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
That I really want to do the dishes today.
I'm going to use that as anexcuse.
You know, I just worked.
Seven days, Sounds correct.
I like to soak the dishes andget them ready.
Listen, there's two real quicksidebar.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
There's two kinds of people.
There's the people who do thedishes and then there's the
people who soak the dishesbecause they're going to do them
later, but they don't really dothem later.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
That's right.
So then you have your customers, your customers.
Your customers are not happybecause, you had an injury and
makes them look bad.
So now you get the press, nowyou get the things coming out.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yeah, there could be some potential bad PR for them.
Absolutely so now they'reputting heat on the facility too
, which, again, so this is mymanagement team, who's now maybe
working more hours becausethey're having to do this
investigation.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Now they're worried about keeping the customer happy
.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Now they've got customer retention issues.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Supply chain still there, but it's.
It's the way it looked yeah itlooked to them it's the end user
absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
We've got the heat that ops is now taking to make
sure that the product gets outthe door but that we get a
solution and a fix.
So there's even more stress andstrain on my management
absolutely.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
And then there's government and it comes in.
So we got some litigation,regulatory agencies, and then
you got some work comp thatcomes about it and you're trying
to spend your time managingwork comp when that time
wouldn't be as much if youhadn't had the injury yeah, so
we have all of the costs that wejust talked about are not
necessarily I'm spending adollar, so they're intangible,
(06:26):
but they're still there, right,right.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And then I have actual tangible costs of I have
fines that I have to, I havefixes.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I have to put in place.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I have the medical bills the hospital bills the
work comp bills I maybe have tochange and adjust and pay here
and there for adding employeesor whatever that looks like, so
there could be some financialcosts to that.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So we have some legal costs down the road, that other
things come.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, so there could be some litigation costs, uh,
attorney fees and some thingslike that.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
so there, are even for your location, your own
attorney, maybe spending theirtime now trying to deal with?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
yeah, if you don't have internal company legal, you
may have to get outside counselabsolutely and then, uh,
overall morale.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
That that's, I know we talked about a couple minutes
ago, but the longer this goeson, more that changes it really
does start messing with peoplementally it does.
I've been to plants where I saywhy do you work here?
Well, the place I worked waskind of unsafe and they feel it,
yeah, and and that cost or theperception that, if this is now
(07:28):
repeated, that the managementteam doesn't care.
And then they feel weird andand they leave.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
we're turnover again Now we now we changed that
narrative again.
We're at three greatexperienced people, but their
family feels like yeah, I feellike the management team here
doesn't care.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I feel like they're not hearing that I have a
concern.
I feel like they're not valuingme because I'm doing all these
extra hours.
I feel that I'm taking heat frommy family member.
So we end up losing employeesand have that turnover, all
because we didn't manage theinjury on the front end.
So I think one of the biggestthings that I hear kind of the
old school thought process waswell, we'll just take the injury
(08:07):
and pay the bill.
But what I think is importantto note is that yes, there's the
bill of all the things, thatthe tangible costs we just
talked about.
Where we're talking about, youknow, you said, work comp,
hospital bills, attorney fees,all of those things, the
citations, those are all costsand I'm not sure we're
(08:28):
calculating that whole bill oftimes.
we're not calculating at all theintangible things that are
still a cost and can be really aproblem and a drain on the
business in terms of you knowhow people feel and the morale
and the productivity.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
My one of my greatest costs that I worry about daily
owning a company is theemotional state of my team.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Burning them out.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Burning them out because it does no good to have
a great team If they all want toquit they're exhausted and
they're tired and they can't runthe product.
We have a philosophy of youknow, let's make sure we're
we're ready to go.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
So we have a great day and a great product which
means they have to have acertain amount of downtime.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
That's right, you have to.
So we have to factor in thattime it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
There's still a cost to that.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
There's a cost to that, so that I'm trying to
prevent that injury and there'sa cost to it.
But if the injury does occurnow I can't send somebody
somewhere.
That ripple affects greatly toeverybody travels and hotels and
everything that just happens.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
So one of the things we want to really look at is how
do we get ahead of that?
So solutions right, Not justlet's create a bunch of problems
and concerns for you and giveyou nothing as a solution at the
end.
So one of my things would be ishow do we prevent that burnout?
That fatigue is a huge reasonfor why some of the injuries
happen, whether it's physicalfatigue or mental fatigue.
(09:45):
Yes that can be a huge thing.
So how do we make sure thatpeople are getting that recovery
time?
So I know we're doing job cuts.
I know that we're evaluatinghow many positions do we really
need for X and can we distributesome of the responsibilities
onto other team members?
I want to really encourage youto evaluate what that's going to
look like over the long term interms of is that going to be
(10:07):
the last thing that pushessomebody to quit?
And now we've lost all of thatknowledge?
So maybe that changes ourdowntime and how long we're down
because they took some of thatdata with them.
So we really want to evaluatehow can we get ahead of that,
avoid that burnout and try andretain those employees that
really do have the knowledge andthey do want to be there.
(10:28):
So let's make them feel likethey're being hurt.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Hopefully you don't have the injury.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, that way they feel like there's good
communication they can freelydiscuss.
Hey, I've got some concerns.
This feels unsafe.
This feels a little weird.
I don't feel right doing this.
Something just seems.
Let's have those open lines ofcommunication.
Let's make sure that we candiscuss any potential risks that
feel a little off, so that theyfeel like it's a safe place to
work, and I think that that'llgo a long way.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Absolutely.
These are our opinions.
Yes, they are, so it's based onour experiences.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
We were both safety managers working in the plant.
This is based on our experiencewith our own team, our own
staff, based on myself 24 yearsbeing on the road.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Being on the road, so do a risk assessment.
We're not saying that it'sperfect, we're not saying that
it's the end all, but there arequite a few tangible and
intangible costs.
So before we approach somethingwith, well, we'll just take the
injury and move on, we want tomake sure that we're really
evaluating.
What does that cost look like?
In addition to I think I'llleave you with this one.
My final thing is is why wouldwe take an injury?
(11:35):
First off, we don't want tohurt anybody.
Second of all, I'm really bigon not having some other entity
tell me how to run my business.
So now I'm having to do fixes ontheir timeline the way they
feel I've got to get whateverparts and whatever contractors
are available to do stuff.
So I think that that would be.
The last thing is that if wedon't do it for the injury
because it's the right thing todo, then we maybe just look at
it from the business side of whywould we allow somebody else to
(11:57):
tell us how and when we shouldspend our money and what we
should spend it on in thetimelines?
That's, that's not great either.
So absolutely that's what we'llleave you with, I think today.
This is Joe Allen, jen Allen.
You can find us on LinkedIn.
You can find us on any socialsat Allen safety LLC.
And Thank you for listening toSafe, efficient, profitable a
(12:19):
worker safety podcast.
If you're looking for morein-depth discussions or
step-by-step solutions on all ofthe different safety and
regulatory topics, please visitus at wwwallensafetycoachingcom
for web-based virtual coachingand training, or at
wwwallen-safetycom to book ourteam for onsite services,
(12:40):
training sessions, to ordermerchandise, to learn more about
our team and what services weprovide in the field, or just
simply to request a topic for usto cover on our next podcast.
If you found today's podcasthelpful and would like to
support our podcast further.
Please help us by subscribing,liking and sharing this podcast
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(13:00):
content.
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Thank you.
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