Developing a written safety plan can take time, but there are some quick things you can add to an employee manual, procedures binder, or even job descriptions that can help your employees stay safe. Think about the small, easy things employees can do to prevent accidents, especially slips, trips, and … Read More
There are lots of reason to focus on safety in a business, starting with taking care of employees and reducing their families’ distress. But there is a bottom-line argument for it, too: as injuries go down, profit goes up. Worker’s Comp premiums go down. Product quality goes up. Less time … Read More
If Montana’s injury rate matched the national average, it would save businesses $145 million annually. Improving worker safety isn’t about changing employees; usually it is about system failures that can be corrected. In this, it is similar to lean manufacturing’s view that 94% of all quality problems are caused by … Read More
The Montana Safety Culture Act requires companies with more than five employees to have a Safety Committee. Considerately, it spells out exactly what is meant by a Safety Committee and even gives a list of what should be discussed in meetings. They do try to make it easy! The purpose … Read More
Montana passed a Montana Safety Culture Act in 1993 that places requirements on companies to take care of their employees and keep them safe. Luckily, for the smallest companies, it is pretty much what a conscientious employer would mostly be doing anyway (well, except for the documentation), if only to … Read More
Planning for your business is both intimidating and important, even if you aren’t looking for financing. It allows you to think through your business, where it is now, where you want to go, and how you plan to get there – which makes you a lot more likely to get … Read More
So often an owner is too busy working in the business to work on the business, and a strategic growth plan is one of the first things to get lost in the shuffle. It just takes too long to get all the pieces together: vision statement, mission statement, values, objectives, … Read More
It is one of the odd truths of life that no matter how well we plan to do everything right, the world doesn’t always listen. Frequently this leads to a small problem, but sometimes it precipitates a major problem for a company. This is where risk analysis comes in: it … Read More