Although the economy shows signs of improving, safety budgets remain depressed, sources say. Patrick Smale, president of E.K. Gillin & Associates, a safety-training company in Stratford, Ont., notes that his firm has seen a 50 per cent drop in business.

“It’s different from a strictly economic downturn,” he says, explaining that the private sector isn’t the only area that has reduced safety spending. “This last round, we actually saw the government stop spending money.”

Smale points to an online poll conducted by the U.S. National Safety Council in 2008, which found that 34 per cent of health and safety professionals were already witnessing the effects of the economy on training programs. Sixty-three per cent of that group said they had less money for education, and 42 per cent said they had fewer staff members to help deliver the training.

Christina Marshall is the manager of occupational health and safety at Safety Services Newfoundland and Labrador (SSNL), a non-profit organization offering driver, motorcycle, community and occupational safety training. She’s noticed that organizations struggle with shrinking safety budgets — and they’re looking for ways to cope.

“Can we do some of the training now, and some later? Is there any way we can spread it out? Before, we would have seen a one-shot deal,” Marshall says.

According to Raynald Marchand, general manager of programs for the Canada Safety Council in Ottawa, the impact of the faltering economy wasn’t immediate. For at least some part of 2009, organizations were implementing programs that had been planned and paid for some time earlier.

But six months later, the money may be gone, and the call for frugality takes precedence.

“We believe that safety is one of those things where you’re managing the risk,” Marchand says. “If you’re not managing the risk, it’s not going to show up right away.... If you don’t get back at it, little by little, incidents start to creep up.”

Coping mechanisms
What are companies doing to cope? Marchand says the smart ones plan to make safety training a priority as soon as their revenue streams will allow.

Procrastinators could find themselves in hot water. “You’ll be able to coast for a while, but then the company could be in trouble if revenues increase but the incident or accident rates are such that you’re spending more,” he says, explaining that costs to cover injured workers and train replacement staff can add up.

Some businesses learn that the hard way, he says. “We’ve seen truck fleets that have gone from 1.5 collisions per day to one every six weeks, then back to one and a quarter, in the course of seven or eight years.” The ups and downs resulted from sporadic safety training, implemented initially to improve the incidence rate, then ignored after the safety levels improved — and implemented again as the rate slid back to terrible.

Some businesses see safety training as an inoculation, Marchand says: “I took the antibiotic, and now I’m cured.” But it’s more like a long-term health issue that needs persistent management. “The problem is going to come back.”

<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>

(Page 1 of 2)