It's high time we all understood something vital about our profession: To protect our workers, we must be more than just safety technicians. We must also be business people. I'm here to tell you how.

A Dose of Reality

Employers are in business to do one thing: make money. If they don't make money, they don't stay in business. The decisions business people make are colored by the need to maximize profits. This isn't a criticism. It's the essence of capitalism. And over the centuries, the profit motive has served as the engine of unparalleled economic growth and progress.

But to idealists, this reality can be hard to accept. I remember how enamored of safety and health I was when I graduated college. I thought: "Wow, now I get to go out and make the workplace safe!" It didn't take long for me to discover how complex my actual responsibilities really were. Yes, the company wanted to protect workers. But it wasn't out of a sense of altruism. It was all in the interest of profit.

Okay, I could accept that. But this led to the recognition of another, even more difficult reality. I was being asked to be a cog in this great profit making machinery. My job wasn't only about safety engineering design and management; it was also budgeting, scheduling and, yes, marketing and business. I was expected not simply to dream up programs but serve as their advocate.

Suddenly, I found myself in a position that I hadn't foreseen and had never wanted: that of a salesman. I was never much good at selling anything-other than myself. But now I had to accept the fact that before I could implement my safety and health programs, I had to persuade unschooled company officials to pay for them.

From Cost Center to Profit Center

Some safety professionals never do come to grips with these realities. I did. I accepted my role and resolved to carry it out effectively. I determined to make the business case for safety at the company. And I stayed true to my ideals by recognizing that I was making these tactical adjustments in the interest of an even greater objective: keeping my workers safe and healthy.

When you look at things in the business context, it's easy to see why safety has been labeled a cost center. Strictly speaking, companies don't make money from safety. And they don't spend money on safety out of an altruistic desire to protect workers, either. The basic reason they invest precious resources in safety is to avoid losing money. In bald financial terms, safety is seen as a kind of necessary evil. Companies want to promote health and safety because occupational illnesses and injuries drive up workers' compensation, medical and other costs. Equally motivating is the company's need to avoid liability and potential OSHA citations.

Conclusion

It's an ugly truth but a truth nevertheless: Wide-eyed idealism isn't the right stuff for a safety director at a for-profit company. Although you can and must believe in what you do, you must also be prepared to adapt to the realities of the business world to accomplish your ultimate objective. Ladies and gentlemen of SafetyXChange, are you willing to play this game? If you are, keep reading this series and I'll show you how to play it well. In the coming weeks, I'll share some of my secrets to building the business case for safety.

GO FIGURE

Obesity, Smoking & Medical Costs

By Glenn Demby

5

The number of years obesity reduces the life-expectancy of people past the age of 20.

7

The number of years smoking reduces the life-expectancy of people past the age of 20.

But from these premises, the authors of a recent study from the Netherlands reach a surprising and somewhat controversial conclusion. They argue that because non-obese, non-smokers live longer, they actually incur greater healthcare costs than people who are obese and/or smoke. In other words, the extra expenses that healthy people normally incur at the end of their lives more than make up for the additional costs needed to treat obesity and tobacco-related illnesses in people who die at an earlier age.

Source: Pieter van Baal et al., "Does Preventing Obesity Lead to Reduced Health-Care Costs?," PLoS Medicine, Vol. 5, Issue 2, Feb. 2008,
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/5/2/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0050037-S.pdf

MEMBER REPLY

Surviving a Tornado

By Glenn Demby

Thank you for writing about the dangers of tornadoes [in the Friday issue of SafetyXChange]. There is really no reason for people to die in this day and age with all of the technology, information and education available. So what happened last week [in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky] is truly a tragedy. I can see how people would be caught off guard by a tornado at this time of year, especially when these things happen during the night. But usually there is some prediction of possible bad weather before it happens, if people listen.

One thing I thought you should have mentioned in your story is that NOAA weather radios are now readily available and affordable so that every home should have one. This would be especially important if you were asleep or if your area did not have warning sirens as you would be alerted to oncoming dangerous weather. These weather radios would make for a great life-saving gift to give or receive any time of year!

You may have heard of the F-5 tornado that ripped through Topeka in 1966 that killed 17 people. It also dispelled a myth that our city was safe because of a sacred Indian burial ground near a hill known as Burnett's Mound. The tornado started up on the mound, circling it before racing northeast through the city. It still rates as one of the biggest and costliest tornadoes in history.

My family was only spared because my dad was outside and heard the sirens. Our TV was on a Kansas City station so we did not know what was happening. Our house was virtually soundproof so we did not hear the sirens inside. He did not have a basement so we went next door and when we came out there was nothing left of the house we were in.

The above picture shows our house in the background and the floor of the house we were in is in the foreground. Our house did blow up (my parents saw it out the basement window) and there were no windows open, but I doubt it would have mattered!

Sue Schilling
Safety Director
Topeka, Kansas

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