Did you know? All employers are required to have a formal, written accident prevention program (APP).  The APP is sometimes referred to as a safety and health plan.

Why is it important? Besides keeping your workers safe, not having an APP is one of the most cited safety violations during inspections.

It must be tailor-made. Your APP must effectively address the hazards relevant to your particular company or that may be encountered by your employees.

Don’t assume anything. Many times employers or safety directors assume they have an APP on a shelf somewhere. It’s safer to assume that if you are not consulting your APP on a regular basis that you don’t have an effective one.

What’s the issue? You want your employees to work safely. In fact you’ve developed an injury prevention plan, you train new hires, hold weekly safety refresher trainings, but your employees are still getting injured.  What’s the deal? 

Have you considered incentives that you may have unwittingly provided to employees that encourages cheating when it comes to safety? Here are some examples:

Not enough time to complete the task. Anytime rushing is involved, shortcuts will be taken.

Not the right equipment or it’s in poor repair. Do workers have to ‘make do’ with worn or wrong equipment? Make sure they have the right equipment to get the work done. Red tag broken equipment so it can’t be used until fixed. 

The direct costs of injuries can be measured easily, but the indirect cost savings of preventing these injuries may be much greater than simply the workers’ compensation dollars. A positive safety climate can increase productivity and improve your bottom line.

Companies report an average 25% increase in productivity after implementing either a program or a control to address injuries to muscles, tendons and joints. 

All interventions studied showed a positive impact on productivity.