As a follow up to my November 20th blog comments, I never really thought that much about whether the Business Case had a practical application for small business. Workers' Compensation statistics show that on average, a small business (defined as an employer with less than about 10 workers) will have one time loss claim in 12 (or so) years. In most cases I have to assume that this is probably a case of good luck rather than a case of having exemplary injury prevention processes in place, but that could be up for debate. As a former small business owner, I must say that making investments in good safety practices never really occurred to me and I had other investments at top of mind to keep our family business growing and able to employ a few people, thereby contributing to the economy of the community within which we operated.

There is no question the theme of the Business Case applies to medium to large business and savings, in terms of human and financial costs. But it wasn't until a colleague from Ontario pointed out to me that the Business Case is even more relevant to a small business owner that I started thinking about this. It began to make perfect sense to me:

• the indirect costs of one serious workplace claim can be upwards of $1 million
  
  
• indirect costs are what put pressure on any organizations bottom line over time
  
  
• the ratio of indirect costs to direct costs can be anywhere from 4:1 to 11:1
  
  
• indirect costs manifest themselves in such things as down time, overtime, additional training costs, injury investigation, damage to property and equipment, hiring costs and other administrative costs
  
  
• a single claim will put pressure on the remaining employees and the business owner to keep up with customer service demands
  
  
• staff become fatigued and stressed and there is increased exposure to risk as a result and the potential of another injury goes up as does sick time

• if the person injured is a baby boomer, it will take the equivalent of 1.4 persons from another generation to replace he or she

• and now-- get this, the U.S. National Safety Council says that off-the-job injuries are up to eight times more costly than workplace injuries

• while nine out of 10 unintentional injury deaths and two-thirds of disabling injuries occurred off-the-job in 2005

Now armed with this information, think about the potential cost, human and financial, to a small business from one serious work-related injury, let alone from a serious off-the-job injury. Does the Business Case apply to a small business? You bet it does --even more so than it applies to mid to big business. When I think back to the worst-case scenario for "Moker's Farm Products Ltd." and I imagine how our third generation family business would have been affected from a serious injury to me or one of our employees, there is no doubt in my mind that we would have had to close our doors. Combined service of 100 years to the people in my home community of Wakaw, SK would have ceased as would our contribution to our employees and their families. To my way of thinking, I averted this potential out of luck and not good business practice.

Now more than ever before, particularly in these economic times, it makes complete business sense to hold injury prevention as a priority, regardless of whether you operate a big business -or a small family business!!! Dollars applied to safety are not a cost but an INVESTMENT that WILL yield exponential returns. And when I talk about injury prevention, I mean holistic injury prevention that applies both at and away from the workplace.