Health and safety budgets and spending

Better safety is not just about having more money, according to the results of our latest reader panel on health and safety budgets and spending. But when there is money to spend, the 67 of our reader panelists who responded say they and their health and safety committee are the best ones to manage the budget, not their managers or the company’s senior managers.

For starters, 67.7 per cent of respondents say their organization has an annual budget set aside for spending on health and safety related products, services and training, while 32.3 per cent do not. Some say their safety spending is lumped into spending in other departments such as production.

We wanted to know who is in charge of managing that budget, and it turns out, that the company’s senior managers are the ones most responsible (30.8 per cent), followed by our reader panelists, 21.5 per cent of whom say they manage the budget which ties the number for their managers 21.5 per cent, and 10.8 per cent by their department head. Surprisingly, only 3.1 per cent said their health and safety committee is responsible for managing the budget, which is just slightly more than the 1.5 per cent of respondents who say their accounting department manages the budget!

When we asked them who should be managing the budget, the numbers changed dramatically. Our readers clearly think they should be managing more of the budget, as 35.8 per cent picked themselves as the best choice, followed by the health and safety committee at 20.9 per cent. The percentage dropped sharply for senior managers 19.4 per cent, as did the numbers for their managers 11.9 per cent and their department head that fell to 3.0 per cent.

What’s most interesting here is that our readers appear to be change champions who want greater power over the budgets, and also think the health and safety committees should have a much bigger role.

Here are a few of their comments that seem to reveal that there are ongoing struggles over who ought to be in charge of safety within these facilities. Practitioners want more control, but CEOs also argue it is part of their duties.

“My position as Health & Safety Coordinator at my company places me right in the middle of any and all safety issues. I manage the safety supplies and know who requires PPE and the exact type, I keep the records on safety training.”

“Although upper management believes in a progressive health and safety program they believe it should be achieved without a training budget.”

“Operations should be in charge of the budget as they are usually held accountable for safety performance.”

“Each department / supervisory area within the company has an OH&S budget that is managed by that area manager. I also have a corporate OH&S budget. Our system works here because it helps convey ownership of OH&S down to the departmental supervisor level. My budget covers corporate OH&S programs, theirs covers training and local efforts.”

“As the CEO of the firm, I have the ability to control who does what and when, concerning safety training. I want to get my people all trained, and so I have to ensure that I have allocated the appropriate funding to meet my needs.”

“The money for the budget should be set by senior management but controlled by the committee.”

We also asked them some questions about whether their budget was going to increase in 2007. Only 13.6 per cent of respondents expect their health and safety budgets to decrease this year, with 40.9 per cent expecting an increase, and 45.5 per cent expecting them to stay the same.

“We are very robust in our budgeting for this, as my expectation is that every employee attend at least eight hours of training or education in the year, as well as safety people take at least two courses and attend one conference.”

“Every year we review the past work program/budget and tweak it to reflect the priority safety concerns that we have for the coming year.”

We asked reader panelists to tell us whether they think their company is spending enough on health and safety products, services and training. Clearly, they think more needs to be done, since almost 60 per cent said more spending is needed. We also found that safety budgets aren’t immune from economic pressures within an organization.

Respondents would spend their funds on a broad range of personal protective equipment, tools and a lot of training.

“As health & safety director I perform most of our in-house training. But I do not have the resources or the training myself to instruct on some of the new health and safety issues of today.”

“We need to spend money on equipment to make things easier ergonomically. This is our biggest problem.”

“Our present increase in activities requires more money to carry out the additional inspections and the training identified from the inputs to our Health and Safety Management System."

“We are actually spending more this year in training for additional air monitors and testers due to our different approach with confined spaces. Our budget changes as the need arises."

“Due to increased production and staff we need to increase our safety and training budgets accordingly.”

We then asked our reader panelists to consider spending on workplace safety with no financial constraints. Overwhelmingly, they picked training as the area they’d invest most heavily in.

When given an open-ended question, and with no financial constraints, our reader panelists had some interesting ideas. But they didn’t suggest just throwing lots of money at their safety problems to make them go away. But they do believe in training.

“I would ensure all workers were properly trained and that certifications and training were up to date.”
“Training and hire an in-house kinesiologist.”

“I would ensure supervisor and employee training for compliance to all relevant legislation and regulations and set a schedule to maintain it all.”

“Increase managerial and supervisory staff training. Upgrade quality of PPE.”

“Conduct more in-plant testing for air quality, noise, etc.  Build better training facilities."

“Health & safety training! Not just for the health & safety guy or the JOHSC members but for all employees including management. Training is the key to a healthy, safety environment in my opinion.”

“Send everyone for safety and job skills training and managers for supervisory training.”

“Training for managers and supervisors. This will give us the biggest bang for the buck. This is where we can make or break our training program, if we do not have buy in from the managers & supervisors, it will not work!”

“I would take additional training and most likely by tools that are of the latest technology.”

“Many ergonomic issues could be improved with the design of new equipment and better equipment.”

“Complete site assessments and supply mandatory basic equipment: First aid kits, eyewash stations, signage, lock-out kits, etc. Currently these items come out of individual site budgets and sometimes it’s just not there.”

“Close down old inefficient plants and replace them with highly automated plants that have minimal human input. Eliminating workers eliminates exposure and the possibility of being injured or developing an occupational illness. Secondly, there is a looming labour shortage. Thirdly, automation reduces errors and by definition produces higher quality products and less waste.”