Short-sighted safety slip-ups
The cost of adopting a robust floorcare strategy is less than the value of just one slip and fall claim. So why are businesses still not investing in the safety of their staff and visitors? James White, Managing Director of Denis Rawlins, shares his thoughts.
When it comes to adopting new cleaning equipment, we spend most of our time talking with the cleaning teams or facilities managers. Often, they don’t need much convincing about the benefits of slip prevention.
However, when it comes to convincing other areas of the business, such as finance, it can be a much harder sell. Sadly, not everyone places the same importance on investing in cleaning innovation and how this can impact a company’s total costs.
Often the financial benefits of lower insurance premiums and reduced slip and fall claims aren’t taken into consideration ‒ they simply see the initial outlay for equipment and fail to recognise the overall savings potential. An additional allocation of budget to facilities/ cleaning can give a massive saving in these other areas.
This short-sighted approach often results in businesses falling short of their slip prevention responsibilities.
Slip prevention
A business has a responsibility to ensure that its staff and visitors are safe and free from as much risk as possible when on their premises. After all, they have a duty of care to prevent accidents, which can lead to hefty fines.
In fact, according to Bonasystems, slips and trips are the most common case of major injuries, with 95% resulting in broken bones. Every year, there are around 35,000 serious incidents, with the average claim against the liable business costing around £14k.
46 | FLOORCARE & MAINTENANCE
In fact, according to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE), UK workers suffer around 11,000 major injuries caused by slips every year, with almost 90% involving broken bones. These incidents are costly for everyone involved.
Businesses are hit the hardest financially, shelling out over £750m per year in fines, healthcare, damage, and production delays due to staff absence. The NHS come off pretty badly too, with the cost due to slips and falls estimated to be over £250m each year. Then there’s the cost to injured individuals, which is incalculable. Aside from the obvious loss of income, there's the pain, worry, and stress, which can significantly reduce their quality of life.
Despite the impact that these incidents have on so many parties, and the fact that most accidents of this nature are completely avoidable, most businesses do not give floorcare the investment that it needs. Whether it’s the transport, retail, professional services, or hospitality sector, if you have public on your premises, you should have a robust floorcare strategy in place to protect people against injury, and yourself against costly liability.
Invest in innovation
All too often when a spillage occurs, we see the cleaner wheel out the mop and bucket in an attempt to remove the risk, but this outdated, ineffective method is pretty much useless. All a string mop is good for is spreading the problem around. It doesn’t actually remove the soil and leaves another, usually larger wet surface, in its wake. It’s a short-sighted response to a serious hazard.
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