CHAPTER ONE

Once upon a time there was a big company. It was called Good Company and it had Good employees.

Everyone at Good Company worked hard and got paid on time. The parking lot was big enough for everybody's car - even during the busiest of days. There were plenty of bathrooms and they were always kept clean. All the employees of Good Company got two days off per week, one vacation day for every 200 hours worked and five paid sick days each year. It was a Good package.

Best of all, Good Company spent lots of time and money on its safety program. It held safety meetings, gave away safety prizes, posted safety signs and notices, did safety inspec

ACCOUNTING 101
Member Reply

Suggesting that the safety professional get involved with following inventory, checking the bottom line in the area of finance and the other business functions in Mark's article is absolutely absurd. In most cases the safety professional in any organization is fighting for their job, fighting for resources and has too much on their plate to worry about doing the controllers job too. Although I have been getting the safetyexchange for about 2 years, this article triggers my hot side.

I believe the safety professional needs to be able to control their budget and to be able to understand that every minute of training, incident investigation, workplace inspection, and emergency response drilling costs the company money. Everyone gets paid every minute they work. Every respirator, training film, pair of gloves or pair of safety glasses takes away from the bottom line. As I began to read the article, this is what I expected to hear, not for the safety manager to watch inventory and question the controller. That is bunk! Try to stick to safety related topics, not MBA summaries.

David Bogart, CSP

QUESTION
Safety Directors & Company Finances

Do you agree with Mr. Bogart's contention that safety directors should concentrate solely on their own department's finances and not get involved in inventory and other company operations that don't directly affect safety? How involved do you get in your company's finances? Send your answers to glennd@bongarde.com. Let us know if we can print your name.

Glenn Demby
Editor-in-Chief
SafetyXChange

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