Posted By Raymond Rapp This is has been discussed many times before so you might like to search the forums for some useful or useless information. From my experience costing accidents is very hit and miss. The cost will depend on a number of variables, such as, the type or severity and does it include infrastructure damage? There are too many factors to list but it may include wages of victim(s), legal costs, cost of those involved in the investigation, civil claim, increase in insurance, lost productivity and so on. Ray

Posted By John D Crosby Hi Things I have used in the past when working for a brewery to highlight the cost was to relate it to throwing x number of barrels of beer down the drain or the running y number of pubs to pay for the sick pay. When in the chemical industry showed to cost of sick pay in terms of the number of silver bullion ingots as the silver was the most expensive material we had and had all sorts of precautions against loss or theft. Take care John C

Posted By Philip McAleenan Geo, This would probably be better conducted by the accountancy department as they will have all the figures associated with costs as well as the relevant competency and knowledge of the appropriate formulae to carry out the calculations. A rule of thumb would be that the additional output required would be equal to: (the total cost of all accidents) multiplied by (100/the annual rate of profit) with the total cost including the costs of the additional output requirements (you can see where it begins to get complicated). Thus for example £50,000 in total costs on a 5% rate of profit would equate to £1million in additional output to make up for the loss. Scale this up to include unnecessary waste, the percentage of output that fails quality standards, mistakes, recalls etc. and you can see that a proper economic assessment really does belong to accountancy (with appropriate input from colleagues in all other departments). Regards, Philip

Posted By Kieran J Duignan Hello IN response to your statement: 'Any ideas or templates would be gratefully received', I suggsst that you are kicking in the wrong direction. A team (or individual) can at best draw by defensive behaviour: they can't win unless they actually score. This requires going for the goal, line or other measure of play. In safety terms, it means length of time without lost-time accidents, which research indicates is strongly associated with high and stable levels of production. Dominic Cooper's 'behavioural safety maturity ladder' is a tremendous model for lifting your game so that you can lead your managers to think positively about contributions of safety rather than defensively. Email me (kieran@simplyenabling.com) if you want a copy of my review of this excellent handbook

Posted By dtennant Geo, I think Philip had your answer in his post about accountancy. All costs associated with the accident, mentioned by others above, have to be paid for from the bottom line ie they come out of the profit. If your company operates at, say, a 10% profit margin, you take the total cost of the accident and consider that as the profit you could have made. Say it was a minor accident and cost £20,000. So to cover that cost in profit alone when you make 10% on normal turnover, you would have to turnover an extra £200,000 just to cover the cost of the accident. I hope I am not trying to teach you to suck eggs, but that is how I have explained it to others in the past. Cheers Otter