Establishing a budget for workers' improvement ideas
  • Peter Bateman
    270
    In the Sept/Oct edition of Safeguard magazine we pose three questions based on stories in the magazine. One of them is this:

    Silver Fern Farms' Streamline Fund sets aside a budgeted amount each year for costed ideas from workers to improve health, safety or wellbeing in their work area. The process to apply is kept simple.
    Would this work in your organisation? Why, or why not?

    Feel free to respond here on the Forum, or privately here via a Survey Monkey form.

    An edited selection of responses will be published in the Nov/Dec edition, but with no names attached. One randomly selected person will receive a prize, namely a copy of the book Work, Health and Wellbeing in the Construction Industry, by Helen Lingard and Michelle Turner.
    Peter Bateman Options
  • KeithH
    171
    While this sounds good in theory, practical application may be limited with a majority of businesses probably unable to provide a reasonable budget.

    As part of my studies, I briefly looked at New Zealand businesses. This is what I found.

    In Feb 2022 according to Stats NZ, there were 592,705 businesses in NZ.
    Of these, the 97.1% employed who 19 people or less are classified as small to medium enterprises. (NZ and Australia share the same cutoff number while in Europe and the US, the cutout is 49 employees).
    Doing the maths, this equates to 575,703 SMEs and 17,001 larger enterprises.

    Given NZ's GDP in 2021 was US$247.23B according to Trading Economics, in NZ dollars this is $427.11B.

    A KPMG report (page 3, para ) determined that SMEs contribute about 25% of the NZ GDP.

    Again doing the maths, on average each SME contributes NZ$185,474 to GDP while the average for each large enterprise is NZ$18,842,104.

    So going back to the number of NZ SMEs - 575,703 - who are easier to target because there are more of them and are more likely to take shortcuts due to the disparity of income, is it not time to revisit how H&S is supported in NZ?

    I like the idea Peter and believe it has merit, just not sure it will gain traction with smaller businesses given their average financial earnings.

    Just my 2 cents worth
    KeithH Options
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