Most of the world has been through a rough recession in the past few years. Some countries are still recovering, while others seem to be on more solid footing  five years after the worldwide financial crash of 2008. And many of us remember when things got really bad in the first part of 2009 and companies were forced to shed jobs and lay off workers. There were knots in stomachs and much indigestion over prioritizing the jobs – what would be cut first? What positions are so invaluable to this company’s survival that they just have to be saved? In many of these situations, it came down to money – what is the return to the company on the investment of salary and benefits to that position or that specific employee>

[Photo courtesy of West Midlands Police on Flickr via a Creative Commons license]Safety officers for any company, such as these transit officers, can be seen as expendable items on a company’s bottom line in a recession, but …

And when you look at it, how may of your CEOs (or even you, if you are the CEO) made the choice to lay off your safety officer(s)? You are not alone; on paper it looks like an expense for the company to have the officer in place and to have the costs associated with implementing a safety program and training and re-training employees. And what does the company get from the position? It is not a sales job or a marketing position, so what value is it?

Well, when you look at it from a macroeconomic standpoint, it’s not a money maker for sure, but safety officers are actually a money-savcver for many companies. Take the TV show “Extreme Couponing,” which can be seen on Netflix. In it, there are stories of men and women who spend hours clipping coupons and checking on the sales at their favorite grocery stores. You see, with many of these people, in lieu of bringing in a salary, they decided to find ways to save as much money as possible- many times they were driven to do this because the chief breadwinner in the house got laid off at some point. (Maybe a safety officer?) Once they did the couponing and saw what they could do in terms of savings, they stayed with it, even after the breadwinner was back in the job market.

Some of these people would spend 40-50 hours a week doing their couponing and shopping, and many of them would wind up saving 90 percent or more on a shopping trip. That savings is like a salary for the work they do with couponing. The same can be said for safety officers. A recent study conducted in Alberta during and after the most recent recession there showed that those companies who laid off their safety officers wound up filing for bankruptcy at a much high rate than those who kept their safety officers.

[Photo courtesy of Hotcouponworld.com on Flickr via a Creative Commons license]… When you see them not as money–makers, but like human “coupons” that can save your company in operating costs, you might think twice about cutting them loose when times are tough – when you do a thorough cost analysis.

Why is this? Well it’s very possible that it’s the couponing effect – it’s not so much how much the officers bring into the company, it’s how much they save the company in fines, worker compensation claims, lost time off work, lost productivity, etc. And in a recession, when a company is already shedding workers in the first place, can a company actually afford to lose more workers due to work-related injuries or illness because safety policies were  altered or corners were cut because there was no safety officer on staff anymore? What about safety violations and fines that could come to a company if they are cutting corners just as a government  inspector happens to be coming by for an inspection?

For a company to survive through a recession, oftentimes it’s all about efficiency. And an efficient company is one where those workers who are still employed are working, making all of their shifts healthy and in their most productive state of mind and body. And oftentimes, to ensure that the thinner, leaner workplace is runnign efficiently, a safety officer can be a very valuable tool to keep that productivity runnign at a high level. And a company that is productive and efficient  profits mroe, which means it will be more likely to re-hire back workers when the recovery happens.

Take a long look at your staffing if your company or your industry is going through a lean period. If you need to shave  labor, where do you cut? Just remember how profitability comes about – not only by making as much money as possible per worker, but also by cutting costs and saving as much money as possible per worker. It won’t be the case every time, but  it would be foolish to put safety officers right at the top of your chopping block when you do a full cost-and-couponing analysis.