A frustrating Argument regarding Cost versus Value in regard to OSH NZ

In the 32 years that I have really been on the front lines in health and safety essentially the most annoying thing people can say to me now is that it is too expensive!! (It's actually got a title - ‘The Cost of Compliance’).



If I was to start on the process of building a plastic-type injection moulding company, it wouldn't be the business itself that would cost too much, it could be the errors I would certainly make on the way. Why? - because I am aware nothing on how to construct this sort of business. I'm totally unaware of the processes involved.



The same fact applies to safe practices. For some weird reason people with no schooling in safety and health (and not much inclination to master in my opinion) expect you'll find their way through a maze with no map and ponder why they go missing. I have met numerous employers who've made numerous false starts, with bits of different approaches (and paperwork) splattered everywhere in the inside of their company, but who never seem to achieve circumstances where they can say "yep, that’s done and dusted". And i also am really saddened by what isn’t achieved along with the money that is wasted in the process. Every time they struggle to have it moving again they meet more counteraction. You’ve heard it; "we tried that a year ago and yes it didn’t deliver the results!"



And don’t rely on the government for much help either. Even though they do produce good quality literature that’s not the problem. Their the important point is "we’ll provide the water - it’s your horse that you have to pursuade to drink it!"



What’s missing is really a essential understanding of the significance that doing health and safety will provide a business with. Not that I expect you to study his works, but a man known as Abraham Mazlow produced a helpful minor idea termed as ‘Hierarchy of Needs’.



(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs#4._Safety_needs).



A few things i take from Abe is that he thinks that UNLESS we deal with the different needs we have as humans in roughly the order in which he suggests, we can’t truly develop and excel at that which you want out of life. This concept has been utilized by business often times and I take that to mean that if businesses don't address their health and safety needs (in the broadest sense of these words) then it will eventually not attain its full potential. If the reason people enter into business is to screw the most money out of everything they do then these people will not need Mazlow. They will also not be around long. They will either die an organic death, strangled by their own lack of knowledge and management ability, or perhaps the Government or someone else will eliminate them. This may be the life and death of all UNVIABLE Techniques.



So, what of worth? or OUR Values? The value of safety and health to a enterprise is the significance that actually engaged, loyal and motivated employees provide for it. Anyone who still believes in slavery not only hasn’t learned the teachings of history but additionally hasn’t felt the lash! ("the whipping will continue till the screaming stops" - yeah right, that can work!!). You can't get truly involved, loyal, motivated employees willing to produce till they drop if you don’t value their fundamental individual right never to be damaged by the work you get them to do. Won’t work, never has, never will; end of story. Sure you might get a nice boat, a couple of houses and a nice car out of it but eventually everything crumbles, simply because it isn’t sustainable. As human beings we will not give our loyalty or put our shoulder to the wheel for those who don’t respect us in exchange. Understand this right and anything else you want to achieve starts becoming a whole lot easier.



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