News
Health and safety failures can have 'unseen costs' for SMEs
25/10/2007
A small business should ensure that its health and safety procedures are up to scratch because accidents which happen as a result of failings can cause irreparable financial damage.
That is according to the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), which has asserted that while accidents such as injury to staff can be covered by insurance the "unseen costs" such as damage to reputation and loss of working time will not be.
As such, the IOSH has warned that it is very important that the proper practices are put in place by those managing a small business to prevent such accidents from happening.
President Lisa Fowlie said: "Basically you don't want something to go wrong, because for a small business, if they have an accident at work or somebody gets hurt, then it's the bad publicity and other added affects that actually cost the business. It's what we call the iceberg affect: you can insure for a very small part (of the damages), but it's the unseen costs that come through.
"If you had an accident to an individual, you've got the (cost of) the damage to the individual and the harm it causes them, but you've also got a knock on effect on business reputation and lost of income as well."
This week (October 22nd to October 26th) is the European Week for Safety and Health at Work 2007, which this year has focused on the campaign Lighten the Load, dedicated to musculoskeletal disorders.
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