"I'm an INVESTMENT in your business"!
Gary Boyes - All things FIRE
Director @ IMD (UK) Ltd | Fire Safety Training & Fire Risk Assessments plus a plethora of other training interventions.
?? A bold statement, perhaps, but I often have that conversation with business owners when they ask about the costs of Health & Safety and Fire training.
?? Now clearly there is a COST to mandatory, legislative training… but if it saves one day off sick, one work-place injury or tragically ONE death… surely that is a great on investment?
?? Forget for now the LEGAL obligation and of course the MORAL (for some) obligation and think about the FINANCES.
Statistics released by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) show that Great Britain is STILL one of the safest places in the world to work, reporting its lowest number on record of workplace deaths.
?? HOWEVER, MORE THAN HALF OF BRITAIN'S WORKING DAYS LOST IN 2019/20 WERE DUE TO MENTAL ILL-HEALTH!
*Figures show:
- Around 693,000 workers sustained non-fatal injuries in 2019/20
- 1.6 million workers suffering from work-related ill-health
- 111 fatal injuries at work
- 38.8 million working days lost to work-related illness and workplace injury
- 325 cases were prosecuted and resulted in a conviction
- Fines from convictions totalled ￡35.8 Million
In the fiscal year 2019/20 the estimated economic cost to Great Britain totalled a huge ￡16.2 BILLION with the 38.8 Million working days lost.
Fast forward to the current year and where will these figures be?
?? With the Pandemic meaning many people ‘working from home’ you would presume deaths and work-place injuries would subside to a large degree?
?? But of course, working from home can present its own problems, with many workspaces literally being a dining room table and chair, (not always the best height for great posture), trailing leads, (trip hazards) or laptops balanced on a settee (muscular skeletal injuries).
?? Coupled with many organisations NOT being focussed on legislative training and keeping staff up to date, (understandably so, they have businesses to protect and save) I predict these ‘injury’ figures will NOT fall drastically.
?? Regarding ‘lost workdays’ then I predict a HUGE increase.
?? Mental Health illness is proven to be on the increase and I predict a huge increase on the figure in excess of 19 million ‘lost workdays’ which when you think about it, represents more than 1 in 4 PEOPLE in the UK, let alone workers.
? What’s the solution?
???? Keep up to date with all Health, Safety & Fire Training, ensuring that staff are not just ‘in-date’ but actually understanding and carrying out the guidance and training.
???? Communicate! There are some amazing organisations that can help… communicate with them (which I realise can be the initial issue).
???? I’m looking to put on a webinar in the near future. Take a look at the newsletter for more details. Click here for the November 2020 Update
*Source Health & Safety Matters
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4 年So glad you are highlighting this. Mental health, like physical health is something we all have and is something we should all understand and be able to talk about openly. The latest figures from the ONS show sharp increases in Mental Illness and COVID is causing a perfect storm of contributory factors that are negatively impacting people's wellbeing. Mental Health training in all its forms should be seen as a necessity. We all need to be able to identify warning signs of mental ill health, and know what to do to address them.