It is "disheartening" to find workers continuing to take unnecessary chances with their personal safety by not wearing protective equipment when performing hazardous tasks. This is an unacceptable level of noncompliance for safety procedures in the workplace that continues today.
In fact, the level of noncompliance has been increasing. With the high noncompliance level it’s not surprising that at least a third of respondents in a recent Kimberly Clark survey cited the failure to comply with safety procedures as the main workplace safety issue in their companies.
At the second rank was the issue of inadequate management support and/or inadequate resources to support health and safety functions (27 percent). This was followed by under-reporting of injuries and illnesses suffered in the workplace (14 percent), training complexities on a multilingual, multicultural workforce (7 percent) and rising compensation costs to workers (5 percent).
Is the worsening economy an underlying factor?The worsening state of the economy may partly explain the continued non-compliance. More than a third (34 percent) of the respondents cited the economy for having reduced their firms' ability to allocate budgets for safety resources and worker training programs. But 59 percent did not blame the economy.
Among the 34 percent who said the economy had affected their safety programs, further probing showed that:
- 63 percent said their firms had less money for education and training
- 42 percent said personnel assigned to take care of safety training functions were reduced
- 33 percent said management had to prioritize business imperatives over safety concerns.
Injuries at the workplace cost American companies at least $50 billion a year. Companies that refuse to enforce safety compliance will lag their competition in the return to increased productivity and profitability. In 2012, take the appropriate action and don’t let your company fall behind and risk being left in the dust by the competition as the economy recovers.
