In today’s business world, risk has to be managed by all organisations. This means that gut feeling and basic instincts count for less. The history of risk management has been one of making tacit knowledge explicit and of validating and supporting expert judgments by quantitative analysis. Decision making in the presence of risk is becoming more widely recognised as a valuable component in wealth creation and business growth.
Managing corporate risk is a key issue for organisations throughout the public, private and voluntary sectors. Risks take many forms, as the “Turnbull Report”makes clear and companies need to have systems in place to manage them. The health and safety of a company’s employees, contractors and members of the public, who may be affected by its activities is one of the most important issues.
Accidents and ill health cost employers between 5 and ten percent of company profits and the economy as much as 2-3% of GDP. Despite this, we believe that the importance of OSH to the ‘bottom line’ is not yet fully understood by senior management. Consequences of it going wrong can have impacts on many areas, including:
- Prosecution of the business
- Corporate Manslaughter Act Fines & other sanctions
- Director disqualification
- Director/manager fines and imprisonment
- Brand image – unwanted associations and commercial impact
- Business continuity
- Major incident & ability to continue trading
- Loss of key assets/personnel
- Uninsurable business or premiums increase
- Uninsured costs
- Disqualification from supply chains
- Workforce relations
Put simply and as we see it: too many people in business and industry still see implementing safety policies as a cost, rather than an investment. This results in occupational health and safety being regarded as an expensive add-on, rather than being built-in to a company’s activities and processes.