Finding a balance between productivity and safety
In an ideal world, safety would be every company’s priority, but that’s not always how business works. The reality is that safety is oftentimes a cost center while productivity generates earnings. But successful businesses need both productivity and safety to round out a long-term, winning strategy.
The role of productivity and safety
Both productivity and safety are essential to the longevity of an operation. Anyone with operations management experience knows how time-consuming safety incidents can be. But one of the biggest mistakes you can make is believing that productivity always comes at the cost of safety.
The safety department’s performance has a direct impact on all other areas of the business. Building and equipment maintenance and 5S are two examples of safety disciplines that help establish a productive workspace. If you view safety as more than an incident management discipline, then you’ll quickly see how big of an effect it can have on your team’s performance.
Striking a balance means that you set productivity standards and provide the resources for workers to achieve them. You’ll never reach your company’s output goals if you don’t create a safe work environment for your employees.
Increase productivity through safety
Many companies treat safety as a roadblock to all the other, more important areas of performance. But this logic doesn’t hold up. How much time does one incident investigation take to complete? How much time do injured employees spend on leave or work accommodations?
The bottom line is that a safe workplace is more productive than an unsafe one. And there are several reasons why.
Incident prevention reduces lost time
Taking a preventative approach is essential if you’re looking to save time and boost productivity. Sure, implementing control measures takes time up front. In the moment, it’s easy to feel like you could spend this time better someplace else. But when incidents happen, they can be extremely disruptive.
I’ll never forget the time one of my reach truck drivers broke their elbow in the middle of the night shift. In a one-million square foot warehouse, we had to call all the PIT drivers off the floor to do a safety standdown. This one hour of downtime cost literally over $100,000 in production delays. But it was necessary to bring awareness to very real safety risks that workers needed to understand.
Investing in safety today can help reduce lost time incidents in the future, boosting productivity in the process.
Safe workers are more confident
Imagine the anxiety employees must feel when they come into unsafe work conditions day in and day out. Creating a safe environment allows workers to focus on their tasks, instead of worrying about getting injured. Instilling confidence not only helps productivity, but it can also reduce quality errors. This means less rework, further feeding into the cycle of productivity.
Health is wealth (literally)
Health in the workplace can refer to so many different things. It can refer to the physical health of your employees or it can mean the health of your equipment and processes. When you invest in your safety program, you’ll see fewer:
- Medical leaves and light work accommodations
- Equipment downtime (due to repairs or replacements)
- Work area closures for maintenance
- System or process delays/failures
All these issues impact productivity in some way or another. Reducing them allows you to keep your operation running at full speed with as few interruptions as possible.
Remember the human element
When setting goals for both productivity and safety, it’s important to remember the human element. Employees are human and therefore likely to make mistakes or fall short from time to time.
That’s why you should allow for a margin of error in all your goals and plans. Here are some of the ways that flexible goal setting can improve multiple areas of performance:
- Reduces the risk of rushing below-standard products or processes
- Lowers anxiety related to stressful deadlines
- Allows workers to focus on performing their tasks correctly and safely
- Makes it easier to adjust company-wide performance targets on a rolling basis
If you factor the human element into your expectations for company performance, then you’ll be much better prepared to handle issues that come up. In business, remaining adaptable to changing conditions—both internal and external—is essential for maintaining a scalable and sustainable trajectory.
