The ROI on Safety: How safety impacts profitability, and what you can do about it.

What an unsafe workplace can cost you

Every worker has a right to a safe workspace, and this is especially true on construction worksites where injuries and fatalities are unfortunately all too common. According to 2023 data from Safe Work Australia, there have been 1,850 traumatic injuries at work and over 1.14m serious compensation claims over the last 10 years. That’s around one in every twelve workers that will have to be off work for a week or more due to a workplace accident. The construction industry recorded the third highest fatality rate by industry in 2022 behind Agriculture and Logistics. Too many workplaces have had to make the call to a colleague’s family member to tell them they wont be coming home tonight.

How do companies best manage their risk and reduce the dollar cost of workplace accidents? The typical way most worksites managed this for the longest time was with paper documents, physical signatures, and spreadsheets. This was inefficient and ineffective with time of workers and the Safety Manager, but until recently there were no better options on the market. This costs workplaces in many ways, from the obvious injured worker claims and time spent away from work, to inefficient use of time, delays in projects, and potential site shutdowns from WorkSafe investigations. Senior workers can also be personally accountable in some circumstances.

Other risks and costs to consider include insurance claims and increases to insurance premiums, reputational damage to your business, as well as the risk of staff turnover and the struggle to get new talent.

Types of risk and costs involved with a workplace accident

What can safety teams do to combat this?

Safety teams can help manage and mitigate many of these actual and potential risks using the latest and greatest in Safety Software. Looking at safety in a more interconnected way, from worker engagement and education, to safety culture and prioritisation onsite, is the ultimate goal of Safety Software platforms. By digitising and automating processes like site attendance and inductions, safety teams can reduce the time it takes from the worker arriving onsite to getting on the tools, reducing time inefficiencies and increasing productivity. By implementing Safety Software you’re investing in productivity, which increases project profitability, whilst promoting a safer working environment. An example of this in action is at RM Watson after implementing SignOnSite, worker behaviour changed around safety. Workers who encountered an issue onsite were able to pull out their phones, look up the SWMS, and start to figure out how to resolve the problem. It removed the barrier of having to stop and call into the HSE Manager, or go to the site office to lookup the SWMS hardcopy. Having a user friendly safety platform encourages workers to engage in safety messages and training, leading to fewer accidents, fewer claims, and less staff away from work.

Sheldon Interiors were able to improve safety and compliance as well as save over 36,000 labour hours by implementing SignOnSite, as seen in their case study here. Saving thousands of hours and millions of dollars, all whilst putting safety first.

Benefits that come from implementing Safety Software

Claim volume and cost

According to Safe Work Australia, the median compensation claim in the construction industry in FY21/22 was $17,669, with 8.2 weeks lost in recovery. With 1.85% of construction workers putting in a claim in the fiscal year, if you have a sizeable team in the hundreds, you’re more than likely going to experience a handful of claims every year. Your insurance may cover the claim itself, but you’re still out a team member for two months, having to source another contractor and train them to the necessary standards.

By implementing a Safety Software platform, you can manage these risk by encouraging workers to engage in safety messaging, Sheldon Interiors improved their workflows using the intuitive SignOnSite platform, leading to 85% of workers actively engaged in safety communications and 94% of workers completing their inductions autonomously. Embedding a safety culture onsite is an important part to reduce the likelihood of a serious onsite accident, in turn decreasing your risk of a serious claim.

Operational improvements

Time is money on a job site, in more ways than one. Making it quick and easy to get started on the tools can save you valuable labor hours to keep projects on time and on budget. According to our clients, most commonly they report going from 40mins to complete a paper induction to just 6 minutes. In subcontractor terms thats roughly $300 a week savings on one worker’s average builder’s hourly wage. Multiply that across your workforce every single day, and thats a big saving. Because its easy for workers to complete, they enjoy using the Safety Software app, reducing the need to chase down signatures and follow up forms. Giving workers the ability to complete forms from their phones and receive briefings creates tangible operational efficiencies.

Project overruns are a logistical nightmare, harm the client, hurt your reputation, and ultimately cost the business money. The clear visibility that a Safety Software platform can give both you and the client can help keep the projects running to schedule.

“[SignOnSite] allows for live tracking of sites, the ability to report on man hours, provides document control options and compliments our Site Safety Management Procedures”

- Ben Abbott, EHS&Q Manager at Insight Development Group, after implementing SignOnSite.

Accreditation and reporting

Changing ISO standards and legal fees can be a lot of paperwork and a costly expense. Keep up with your reporting requirements by automating processes, digitising documentation, and automating third-party audits and ISO compliance. Working smarter to make sure your site is compliant to the latest standards will give you back precious time and give you everything at your fingertips during accreditations and audits. This not only saves time and money, but will make reporting up the chain a breeze. Masuma Tabassum, the Compliance Manager at Graphite Energy, attests to how they use SignOnSite at audit time;

“when you're audited for ISO 45001 certification, they check for all your records… which we could find in SignOnSite with the attendance, inductions, SWMS, and credential features”.

Having the certification for ISO 45001 gives you the ability to tender for government work, signifying that you’re meeting the requirements for the WHS Accreditation Scheme. Using a Safety Software is an effective way to demonstrate to the procurement team that you take worksite safety seriously, a key concern for governments and regulatory bodies. Worksite safety systems and processes can be a key differentiating factor between tenders, and improving your safety standards could up your tender success rate.

Conclusion

The link between creating a safer worksite, better smoother processes, and adding to the bottom line is clear: comprehensive Safety Software. Getting workers to engage with safety messages, creating a safer worksite, reducing risk of serious accident, are all par for the course for Safety Software. And with a simple, user friendly interface too.

SignOnSite offers a substantial return on investment for construction businesses. By digitising and automating processes, you can repurpose your worker’s time into more productive activities, and save money in the short and long term. There are so many more benefits to SignOnSite, so get in touch with our team to see how our platform in action.