Financial assessment of health and safety programmes in the workplace

ABSTRACT

In evaluating health and safety improvements for performance improvement, it is necessary to account for both the contributions of a healthy workforce and the resources required supporting it.

The Economic Assessment of the Work Environment (EAWE) is a financial framework that helps management forecast the financial benefits of health and safety implementations. The five-step process comprises (1) a health assessment to identify critical elements in the work environment, (2) an action plan to address gaps, (3) performance targets based on internal goals and external benchmarks, (4) transformation of the expected improvements in health and safety into expected performance outcomes, and (5) implementation in stages, starting from individual jobs to entire organisation.

EAWE offers a dynamic framework for corporate decision-makers when evaluating health and safety programmes. Further research should explore the bounds of EAWE across different types of organisations and the evolution of performance over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Financial benefits of health and safety
• occupational health improvements
• health and safety performance
• return on occupational health interventions
• financial approach to health and safety

Acknowledgments

The outcome of these efforts would not have been possible without the support of Dr Richard Shell and Dr Henry Spitz who, jointly with Dr Ash Genaidy, were my dissertation advisors at the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati. In addition, I would like to thank Marianne Canario at Instructional Methodologies of Ohio, Inc., who has coached me on technical writing as part of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Omar R. Paez

Omar R. Paez earned his BS in Javeriana University at Bogota, Colombia and his MS in the University of Cincinnati. He has worked in the implementation of performance measurement systems for manufacturing operations in Latin America and the US. In 2002, he joined Dr Genaidy's research programme in human performance measurement to complete requirements for a PhD in industrial engineering. His research is focused on the impact of human factors and ergonomics in organisational performance.

Ashraf M. Genaidy

Ashraf M. Genaidy holds degrees in engineering (BS, MS, PhD) and epidemiology (PhD). Dr Genaidy's research is focused on the ergonomics, safety and health engineering, statistics, epidemiology and engineering economy and entrepreneurship. From 1987 to 2010, Dr. Genaidy was an associate professor of the industrial and manufacturing engineering and the environmental health. For seven years, he was the deputy director of the safety and health engineering programme in the NIOSH-Sponsored Cincinnati Education and Research Center, at the University of Cincinnati. Dr Genaidy is the author or co-author of over one hundred peer-reviewed papers published in international journals including Ergonomics, Human Factors, Applied Ergonomics, Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Sciences, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Journal of Occupational Medicine, Spine, Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Journal of Safety Research.