Off-The-Job Safety
Section III

Getting Support for Off-the-Job Safety in Your Organization

Selling Off-the-Job Safety

The ideal off-the-job safety program would start with full top management support. Even if you are not able to obtain this support, the benefits obtained from a local or division program make the effort to implement a program worthwhile. To gain the support of your boss or the company president, you will probably need to sell them on the value of an off-the-job safety program, using some of the material and arguments previously discussed.

To sell off-the-job safety, we must be personally committed and passionate about the topic, and willing to mount a sales campaign.

The key in selling safety is to concentrate on the benefits to the person you are trying to sell. A simple way to remember this is to use the call letters of everyone's favorite radio station--WIFM. The letters stand for: What's In it For Me.

Some of the key steps required to gain the support of people in the organizational hierarchy are:

1. Determine or estimate the human costs. Statistics on fatalities should be available from the Human Resources organization. Injury statistics will be more difficult to obtain, but averages are available from the National Safety Council.

2. Applying those averages to your employee and dependent base will help to illustrate the magnitude of the problem.

3. Determine off-the-job accident costs and the revenue needed to pay for the costs. Table 3 is a model for the cost study.

4. Develop a budget for the program and compare it to the expected savings. Estimating savings is difficult, but a sound basic program should be able to reduce medical costs for the 800-999 classification codes by at least 10-15%, and probably more over a period of time.

5. Sell other organizations on the benefits to them of an off-the-job program. Get the Human Resources personnel involved. They stand to gain considerably from the reduction in medical costs.

   Also, ask the Sales organization to help you package your presentation in the most attractive format.

6. Sell the program up the line. The greater your sales success, the more impact you will have. It might be necessary to demonstrate success at the local level before you are able to convince others of the benefits of a more encompassing program.

7. Track the savings and costs. Publicize the savings to obtain continued funding for the program through the years. Off-the-job safety is a permanent commitment.

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