Off-the-Job Safety

What is off-the-job safety?

Off-the-job safety is the extension of an organization’s on-the-job safety culture. Off-the-job safety programs educate employees about being safe while not at work.

A growing number of businesses now consider off-the-job safety critical to good management of health care costs, productivity and profits. More importantly, off-the-job safety programs help save the lives of employees and their families.

Impact of off-the-job injuries and deaths

U.S. workers are actually safer on the job than in their homes or communities. Home and community deaths are up 74%. According to the 2011 edition of the National Safety Council Injury Facts:

Nine out of ten deaths occured off the job
nearly three-fourths of medically consulted injuries occurred off the job

The overall risk of unintentional injury deaths has increased in the home and community due to:

poisoning (up 13%)
falls (up 7%)
mechanical suffocation (up 6%)
drowining (up 6%)

Direct and indirect costs

Unintentional off-the-job worker injuries and deaths cost the nation at least $246.8 billion in 2007, a staggering $1677 per U.S. worker. This figure includes lost wages, medical and hospital costs, and administrative expenses associated with insurance.

In 2009, employers lost more than 255 million days of production time due to off-the-job incidents, compared with 55 million lost workdays resulting from workplace injuries.

Future lost production time resulting from off-the-job injuries that occurred will total an estimated 545 million days – more than twelve times the 45 million days lost in future years resulting from workplace injuries. These costs are even higher when you add health care claims and other benefit costs associated with injuries and deaths to workers’ family members.

Safety is good business on and off-the-job

Safety doesn’t stop when you leave work. Passing that philosophy on to your employees and encouraging them to follow your example creates a sustainable culture of safety. This keeps overall injuries and healthcare costs down, keeps productivity up, and empowers your employees to apply best safety practices 24/7, wherever they are.

Partner with the National Safety Council to save 10,000 lives and prevent 1 million injuries by 2014.

Start or enhance your off-the-job safety & health program. Explore additional resources and the new Family Safety & Health Employer Resource.

These materials are made available in part by the generous support of John Deere.