The costs of illness and injury
There are many costs associated with incidents whether employees are hurt or not. Clearly the costs spiral when there are people injured, but there are many costs that are indirect and are consequently left out of the equation as we consider the value of WHS management systems. Some of these costs are very difficult to measure in monetary terms but still can have a major impact on the 'bottom line'.
A very rough estimate of the costs associated with an incident causing a medium Level of illness or injury [six weeks off work] for one person is provided in the table below. Some of them might surprise you. These are only the ones that are borne by the organisation; there are other costs that fall on those outside the organisation.