Na França:
The INRS establishes a link between workplace accidents and a company's economic performance
A study by the French National Institute for Research and Safety (INRS) has established a link between a company's accident rate and its economic performance.
Based on a sample of 1.9 million French companies over a 15-year period, the aim of the study was to carry out a statistical assessment, across all sectors of activity, of the existence and importance of the link between companies' accident rates and their economic performance. The ultimate aim was to answer the question: 'Can it be said that the more resources a company devotes to occupational risk prevention, the better its economic performance?'
And indeed, the study shows that a higher frequency of workplace accidents is associated with a drop in a company's economic performance. More precisely, a 10% increase in the frequency of occupational accidents reduces, on average, a company's productivity by 0.12% and its profit by 0.11% over the same year. This effect is even more marked in companies with fewer than 20 employees, with a 0.38% drop in productivity and a 0.24% drop in profit. These companies face more constraints, in terms of staffing and material requirements, when it comes to dealing quickly with the disruption caused by a workplace accident. Additional tests carried out on companies with more than 150 employees, which have greater resources to invest in prevention, show that the impact on profits extends over the two to three years following the accident.
For the first time, these results provide scientific validation of the existence and importance of the link between accidents and a company's economic performance. The lower the loss ratio, the higher the company's economic performance. Over and above the employer's statutory obligation to safeguard the health and safety of workers, this study provides an argument in favor of implementing occupational risk prevention measures in the workplace.
Moreover, these results add to the numerous studies demonstrating that prevention is an investment whose benefits outweigh its costs. For example, a review of several hundred studies carried out by the 'Initiative Gesundheit & Arbeit' collective (occupational health and safety initiative) concludes that workplace health promotion initiatives offer a return on investment of 1:5 to 1:10 on absenteeism-related costs, and 1:2 to 1:6 for healthcare-related costs (cited in Leka & Jain 2017).
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