In the construction industry there is a constant need to get things done quickly. Time is literally money. So, when a safety rep comes to site and requests that time be taken out to ensure work is being done safely, a common response involves someone mentioning that they don’t have time. Conducting a job or task safely in primarily to benefit the worker, to ensure they go home every day without injury. However, the same workers that safety reps are trying to protect are often the ones giving excuses as to why they do things unsafe. Below you will see a flow chart listing the sequences involved in a task that is done safely and one that is done where an injury occurs.
As you can see, when time is taken to ensure a job is done safely and properly there are fewer steps involved to complete that task. That also means workers are free to conduct other tasks. When someone gets injured doing a job the employer has to pay someone else to finish that job. Now we have two people doing a job that should have been done by one. This is starting to show the cost benefits to working safely and properly as well.
The old cliché is correct, time is money, but no amount of money is worth endangering a human being at work.
