In theory, as employers, we know that workplace injuries can come back to bite us. What would feel like a small nuisance in our own homes – a bumped head, a sprained ankle, a cut to the finger – needs to be taken much more seriously when you’re in a position of responsibility over other people.
Then again, in practice, we can easily convince ourselves to gloss over the minor injuries. They can happen during a busy period when it slips our mind to pull out the log book and follow due practice, or the employee themselves might be so intent on brushing it off and getting back to the task at hand that you’re convinced it’s not a big deal, and doesn’t need to be formally logged.
But this is a trap so many employers fall into, usually unwittingly. It rarely traces back to a draconian employer who simply doesn’t value their employees enough to log their injuries. It’s usually a busy employer who doesn’t realise that an injury has crossed from ‘a bump that’s forgotten in 2 minutes flat’ to ‘a bump that will have repercussions later’.
Minor injuries can (and do) become major liabilities
If a minor injury is not properly recorded – along with what steps were taken to ensure the employees’ wellbeing and safety contemporaneously – then, perhaps the majority of the time, nothing bad will ever happen. But there are plenty of instances where something bad can happen down the line: compounding strain, injection, and delayed concussion are all examples of consequences you don’t necessarily ‘see’ when you’re simply dealing with an employee who tapped their head on a shelf, or cut their leg on a protruding nail.
It sounds far-fetched in the moment, and it’s all too tempting to decide ‘that won’t happen here’. But the reality is that it can happen, and it can happen to you just as much as it can happen to any other employer.
This is why workers compensation insurance is vital for any business that hires any number of employees, whether it’s 1 or 1,000. You can never know when work as usual is causing long-term damage to their health and wellbeing.
The injury doesn’t tend to represent the biggest expense
Direct medical costs are expensive enough, particularly if your employee requires long-term rehabilitation for a strain injury, or even brain damage. That’s usually the first expense that comes to mind when you consider the fallout of a workplace injury.
But consider other costs to the business. You may need to hire-in a replacement for them, or pay substantial overtime to other employees to cover their absence. Lost productivity is a big cost to any business, though one that is difficult to quantify.
Then, if they end up filing a claim against you, there’s the cost of legal representation and a potential payout on the other side of a lengthy court process.
Badly injured employees create a major knowledge gap
Finally, there’s the fact that most of us can’t afford to lose a valuable employee, whether for a week or two, or permanently. Businesses tend to operate close to the line in terms of having enough expertise on-hand to ensure continuity, and losing an employee’s input and oversight suddenly (even just temporarily) can incur costs far beyond a trip to the ER.
