What does it cost your company to do business? What is your plant or company number one indicator of plant performance (control Sheet, scorecard, scrap rates)? Is safety present on any of these indicators? If yes, where and should it be present?
What is the cost of labor per hour or even per unit? What makes up this cost?
What is your company's ROI period for any capital expenditure?
What value is considered capital in your company?
What is the cost of safety?
How is safety valued and financially accounted for in your company?
Worker's Compensation is an expense, is it a fixed cost or variable cost and how is it allotted for in your company? Would savings from reduced worker's compensation cost be considered a cost savings or cost avoidance? Why is this important? Are safety expenses and cost of worker's compensation expensed out by plant and department or only per business unit?
Do the business units understand how many units they must manufacture, or contracts to sell, to equal the cost of worker's compensation? Do you know? Do you want to know?
Do you know what safety cost your company? How do you justify those costs? Are you required to justify safety cost?
Is safety seen as a cost of doing business or is safety a line item?
Should safety and the cost of creating a hazard-free and injury-free work environment be cost justified?
Do you attend Management Review Meetings, and do you know the financial status of your plant or company?
How do you affect wages or the cost of direct or indirect labor?
What is your cost of worker's compensation per direct labor cost per hour? How do you know if that is an acceptable number?
How does safety affect JIT (just in time) deliveries, or shipments or continuous-flow production methods?
Is your position seen as needed for regulatory protection for the company?
Is your position seen as a viable part of operations? How do you know?
When budgets are created are you involved (outside your department) in decisions, such as identifying capital needs, setting long-range needs, cost justifying those needs, etc.?
You have a minimum of 480 minutes every day. What will you spend this time on? Paperwork, observations on the line, meetings, tests and evaluations, setting up medical appointments, training, first aid, talking to doctors and nurses, problem solving, enforcement, more meetings, fact finding, presentations, listening to complaints, escorting government people around the plant, emails, phone calls, taking people to the doctor, talking to employees and supervisors on the line, auditing, developing safety processes or evaluating them, entering data and making charts, more paperwork, then lunch-and this is only one shift. So when do you have time to think about financial issues?
Sales are down, the company is merging two plants, they are laying off 10 % of managers as redundant, corporate wants a 20% increase in revenue, all hiring is frozen, all expenses must be approved by the plant manager.
