Benefits and costs

Benefits of good health and safety

Addressing health and safety should not be seen as a regulatory burden: it offers significant opportunities. Benefits can include:

• reduced costs;
• reduced risks;
• lower employee absence and turnover rates;
• fewer accidents;
• lessened threat of legal action;
• improved standing among suppliers and partners;
• better reputation for corporate responsibility among investors, customers and communities;
• increased productivity, because employees are healthier, happier and better motivated.

See Case studies: the benefits of successful leadership to see how organisations have gained benefits through health and safety leadership.

Costs of poor health and safety at work

HSE statistics reveal the human and financial cost of failing to address health and safety:

• More than 200 people are killed at work in the United Kingdom each year. This does not include work-related road deaths.
• In 2006, 30 million working days were lost in the UK to occupational ill health and injury, imposing an annual cost to society of £30bn (more than 3% of GDP).
• Surveys show that about two million people suffer from an illness that they believe to be caused or made worse by work.
• Many thousands of deaths each year can be attributed to occupational illnesses, including some cancers and respiratory diseases.

Organisations can incur further costs – such as uninsured losses and loss of reputation.

See Case studies: when leadership falls short to learn from the mistakes of other organisations.