Speaking to Safety Bytes, Mr McGettrick said there is a “huge link” between good levels of workplace safety and high levels of productivity.
“The benefits of good workplace health and safety include low levels of accidents, absenteeism and improved staff morale,” he added.
“So the benefits of better workplace health and safety can really have a big impact on improving productivity, reducing production delays and improving profits for the company.
“Businesses can make the mistake of assuming that to improve productivity, you have to sacrifice other elements, such as safety. In fact, the opposite is true. “Evidence suggests that good businesses that have a good positive health and safety culture and are well run, are also very well performing economically as well.”
In fact, he points out that recent studies show a return of investment in health and safety of around £1 in £10.
“For every pound you spend [on health and safety], you get £10 back whether that’s through reduced costs or getting more out of people,” said Mr McGettrick.
“It’s a no brainer. Businesses should be investing in health and safety, because it has a huge business benefit and should not be seen as a cost that can be cut when the bottom line needs to be improved.”
Watch the full interview here.
For more from Peter McGettrick, read this SHP interview with him about leadership, shortly after he joined Turner and Townsend.
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No but, yes but, no but, that has always been the business case for any employer to be more parental than predatory but, you would have thought over the years that, that was so counter intuitive, regardless of the significant return on investment in terms of performance and productivity, in many cases, greater then net or even gross profit margins, common sense would prevail but, no.
Maybe signing up to having the concept of shifting their mind-set from flogging dead horses to recognising the lost productivity in presenteeism directly linked to over-exposure to optimal “Work Exposure Limits”, in their face, just might as constant reminder or “nudge campaign” and the thought of “Stress Auditing” will get them past the barriers they put up to knowing what is, not only good for them but, their bottom-line, stakeholders and employees when getting around to overriding their Personal Ideologies stuck with “flogging the horse” and, give way to their Profession PC Ideologies – doh
https://www.shponline.co.uk/dse-compliance-just-10-study-claims/
Perhaps, it is time to stop accepting the “I don’t know what to do” excuse as, the screen ergonomic tools to reduce visual stress and improve screen accessibility thereby, reducing the predictable high risks of CVS / Asthenopia in the majority of DSE operators presenteeism regardless, of the mitigative measures hiding in plain sight since the 90’s for FREE and maybe all that is necessary to make a start on recovering the 20% lost productivity founded in CVS, Screen Fatigue (Asthenopia WHO ICD).
Never mind the objective, or even perceivably diagnostic, Screen Risk (VRA) and Display Screen Ooptimisation (DSO) commercial Tool-Kit providing benchmarking and scale of predictable and foreeable risk in operator-machine interface accessibility, that has been around for 10 years or more, used in education but, not crossed over into the workplace?