Maintaining Health and Safety Standards: Not Just About Compliance

Hey, everyone. I hope all of you in the U.S. are enjoying the 4th of July weekend. As for me, I’m in the middle of a relaxing trip to the great state of VA to visit my family and it’s nice to be back here after several months of being away. Also, it’s been nice to sit around my mom’s house and just crash for the weekend after having spent the previous few days in the U.K. at some meetings for work. In fact, I’d planned to post this entry earlier this past week, but was pretty swamped while I was “across the pond” and am just now getting a chance to do so.

It’s funny that I was just in the U.K. because the focus of this entry is a British corporation, BP. In the past couple of months, the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has been dominating the news and BP has been getting horrible press as a result. I can’t claim to know for sure what caused the disaster, but much of the press coverage has focused on how BP’s lax adherence to safety standards created the “perfect storm” that caused the oil rig explosion. It’s amazing to think that something as simple as following safety standards could have prevented the worst ecological distaster that we’ve ever seen. This got me thinking about other recent instances of companies ignoring safety standards with disastrous results, including the lead paint found in toys and the chemicals found in baby formula in China. I’ll never understand what could make corporations put profits ahead of people’s health and well-being, but maybe that’s simply because I’m wired differently than some people in the business world. I soon realized that this would make a fantastic topic for a blog entry, but had no idea how I’d be able to fit it in with the workload of my new job.

Just as I was thinking about how I could find time to write about this topic, I was contacted by a writer named Jessica Cortez, who asked if I would consider posting a guest article from her on my site. On her own site, she mostly writes about online degree programs, but I asked her if she would be willing to step out of her traditional area of focus and tackle this issue. She graciously agreed and the result is the article below. After reading it, I knew that I should pass it along to my readers, many of whom will be in the position to make decisions about standards compliance in the future. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. Thanks again to Jessica for contributing the article.

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Title: Maintaining Health and Safety Standards: Not Just About Compliance
Author: Jessica Cortez

As the BP oil disaster further unfolds in the press and primes the already established societal cynicism toward big business, budding entrepreneurs must reevaluate the importance of health and safety. It goes without saying that BP’s epic mistakes only demonstrate how overlooking safety standards can have disastrous consequences.

However, even though BP is now at the center of media attention, the oil company is not the only business that has forfeited safety with perilous results in a presumable effort to boost profit margins. In 2007, the toy manufacturer Mattel and RC2 Corp., another toy producer, recalled millions of toys after lead paint and other hazardous production materials were discovered in plants in China.

These stories are far from being isolated events, and instead of dismissing them as the unavoidable outcomes of managing very large businesses, serious business scholars and aspiring businessmen and women should view each precedent as an opportunity to learn from others’ past mistakes.

A very insightful BusinessLink article discusses the importance of maximizing employees’ health and safety. The cited examples of business who have violated their own commitments to employee and environmental safety first of all demonstrate that seeking maximum profits by ignoring safety will only lead to more costs in the end, not profit. The potential costs of productivity loss, recouping the ill or injured, and damages to business equipment and environment are simply too high to take the risk. While calculated risk has its place in business success, reckless risk is dangerous to all involved.

Secondly, the importance of building and maintaining a good reputation as a responsible business cannot be dismissed as mere idealism. The BusinessLink article hits the nail on the head when it states:

“Your reputation can be an important asset to your business. A good reputation helps you attract and retain customers. It makes it easier to recruit new employees and can improve employee motivation. It also encourages suppliers to want to be associated with you. Your approach to health and safety is important. Some businesses have built their success on a reputation for doing the right thing. Others have suffered as customers, local communities and even their own employees have turned against them.”

The most important fact to take away from implementing rigorous health and safety standards in your business is that compliance is not enough. Meeting minimums is mandatory, but predicating a business on minimums ensures mediocrity. Going beyond what is asked by the government, and asking employees, clients, and investors what is important to them inspires forward thinking.

Establishing a well-thought out standard for health and safety is only the beginning. Open communication, full-scale awareness and transparency, and meticulous internal oversight minimize risk. These considerations will, in the long-term analysis, only boost profits and, more importantly, the business’ general good will.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Jessica Cortez, who writes on the topics of online degree programs. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: cortez.jessi23@gmail.com.