Safety and the small business

Scott Murin was trying to make an impression. The branch manager at Harris Rebar in Meridian, ID, stepped up to the whiteboard during a team safety meeting in 2012.

“I wrote the word ‘Safety,’” Murin said. “Underneath it, I drew a horizontal line. Below that line, I wrote the word ‘Production.’ I said, ‘You see the word ‘Safety’ over ‘Production’? That’s the new us.’”

For Murin and many other small-business leaders, putting worker safety above the bottom line can be challenging.

The Small Business Administration defines a small business as an establishment with fewer than 500 employees. In 2018, about 30.2 million small businesses employed approximately 58.9 million workers, or 47.5% of the U.S. workforce, according to SBA.

Small businesses typically don’t have the same resources, finances or time to devote to safety as larger organizations. That can lead to higher injury rates, suggests a 2018 study published in the journal Occupational Health Science.

Researchers noted that small organizations with 50 to 249 employees had a total recordable injury and illness incidence rate of 3.7 per 100 employees, compared with 3.3 for businesses with over 1,000 employees, based on 2015 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rates were even higher for small organizations in industries such as nursing and residential care (7.2 per 100) and manufacturing (4.5).

Murin’s whiteboard illustration was a turning point for the 18 employees at his company, which fabricates rebar for bridges, buildings and other construction projects.

“It kind of started ringing a bell,” said Murin, whose message remains on the whiteboard today. “If we have some sort of near miss that could’ve been bad, we’ll shut the whole place down and talk about it. It’s worth it to drive the point home.”

Investing in safety

Just because small businesses may not have the same resources doesn’t mean a safety program is out of reach. The benefits of operating safely far outweigh the consequences of a serious incident: According to a 2015 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, worker injuries and illnesses cost U.S. businesses $225.8 billion a year. So what holds small businesses back?

“It’s usually money,” said John Vasquez, a safety consultant with the National Safety Council. “They’re afraid of investing too much in safety and not enough in their own business. They’re concerned (about safety) – it’s just that the money can outweigh the issues with safety. Sometimes, they just roll the dice and hope nothing happens.”

In 1997, Dan Valdez became the first safety director at Central Machining and Pump Repair in Minot, ND. The company’s new owners were in the process of paying off the business, which meant financial resources were limited.

“All the equipment was old,” said Valdez, who also is the company’s general manager. “There was no guarding. It didn’t come with the safety factors you see today.”

A visit from an OSHA compliance officer was a wake-up call. “We had to stop using that equipment until we fixed it,” Valdez said. “It doesn’t make a difference whether it’s old or not, the standard says you have to guard it.”

Creating a safety culture

When Valdez began his duties more than 20 years ago, he encountered a few of his 25 full-time employees unwilling to listen to the message.

“They were set in their ways,” Valdez said. “I had to be tactful about it. It was difficult in the beginning. I couldn’t get through to a lot of them. It had to change. We had too many people getting injured.”

Safety doesn’t tend to stick, experts say, unless the message comes directly from leadership.

“Is safety the most important thing to you or not?” asked Lou Allegra, a Pennsylvania-based mentor for SCORE – a resource partner of SBA that offers free services to help entrepreneurs and small-business owners navigate business challenges. “Do you care if your employees get injured or not? Safety has to be No. 1.”

Vasquez agreed: “If it’s not important to your boss, it’s not important to you.”

When leadership emphasizes the importance of safety, workers often follow suit. “When they’re comfortable in that setting and they know people care about them, the quality will come and the productivity will increase,” Allegra said. “I’ve seen that time and time again.”

Allegra said bringing on new employees also should have a safety component.

“You have to hire people who have the outlook that they’re going to work safely and they’re going to help other people work safely,” he said.