162 Accident Investigation: Basic

"Selling" Safety

Direct and Indirect Cost Savings: Indirect costs vary by event and may be substantial. To help management understand the bottom-line financial benefits from approving recommendations, emphasize the financial benefits. The most common way of doing this is to estimate the direct and indirect cost savings.

• Direct costs include workers' compensation payments, medical expenses, and costs for legal services.
• Indirect costs include training replacement employees, incident and accident investigation and implementation of corrective measures, lost productivity, repairs of damaged equipment and property, and costs associated with lower employee morale and absenteeism.

OSHA's Safety Pays Program software has excellent tools that estimate direct and indirect accident costs. You can calculate the business volume required to cover the costs. The estimates are illustrative; use the employer’s own cost information when available.

Provide Options

Another good recommendation strategy is to provide the decision-maker with alternative corrective actions. This will increase the probability that the decision-maker will choose one of the alternatives. Your options might follow the logic below:

1. First option - Eliminate the hazard with primarily engineering controls. Additional administrative controls if required.
2. Second option - Eliminate the hazard with primarily administrative controls. Engineering controls if required.
3. Third option - Reduce exposure to the hazard with administrative controls and/or PPE.

Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.