The Price of Non-Conformance

We all know that accidents cost a company a lot of money. Direct and indirect costs add up and can result in a  serious financial situation for a company. Accidents and incidents happen because of non-conformance to rules, regulations, laws (including the laws of physics  - like gravity...) and other standards.

But there is also a loss of reputation. After a serious accidents or a fatality happens, the media will spread the word, everybody will know the name of the company (for example BP or Massey Energy) - at least for a while (sometimes I wonder how long we actually WANT to retain the knowledge about the oil spill or the coal mine disaster - it is much more convenient to forget about it, right?). Loss of reputation does, of course, not necessarily mean that a company will be going out of business (after all, BP is still in business and making money (would be interesting to know how much of their profit now goes into improving safety on oil drilling platforms). But potential employees may think twice about getting a job with companies that seem to be only interested in their own profit and deliberately put lives and health of their employees at stake. How about yourself? Would you like to work as a safety professional in such a company?

But there is more to the price of non-conformance. Let's get away from looking at the companies but focus on the employees, the victims, who were exposed to hazardous chemicals, materials, conditions, may have delayed reactions to chemical exposure, let's focus on workers who were told by their supervisor or management to "get the job done" because the schedule is tight, because it would be too time consuming and costly to get the right equiment or PPE (which should have been planned for in the first place).

The victims pay the ultimate price of non-conformance with their illnesses, with their injuries, with their lives. The families of the exposed employees have to pay as well, must make adjustments if the bread winner of the family is permanently disabled, is dependent on spouse and other family members, have to deal with medical cost, or ------ grief.

No, it is not always the company who is solely to blame, whose non-conformance is the reason for safety and health issues. We cannot relieve the individual employee from his responsibility to work safely, to apply his/her knowledge and skills to follow established rules and apply common sense (although one person's common sense is not necessarily anther person's common sense).

Meike Patten, MPSafetyTraining