Prioritizing Workplace Safety During Financial Headwinds

By Scott Cormier

Companies across a myriad of industries are turning over every pillow and cushion to find some extra funding to help stretch their budgets a little further. This budgeting season for many has been met with obstacles due to inflation, the rising cost of labor and more. However, when leadership teams are tasked with taking a red pen to their financial plans, they must consider the long-term consequences when it comes to cutting back on facility management services.

Executives must understand that the four walls of any organization, whether it’s in healthcare, manufacturing or higher education, play a massive role in the overall health and safety of that environment. While it may seem like common sense to avoid scaling back on this important area, the reality is that leadership teams often consider delaying capital improvement projects or deferring maintenance as a means to slash spending in the short term. However, the instant gratification of pulling back on spending in those areas could wind up costing companies even more in the future.

As a way to avoid those problems down the road, facility managers must be brought into the fold during these critical financial discussions as they can provide a wealth of knowledge about how certain cuts could impact overall compliance, safety and disaster planning.

Disaster Planning

Facility managers play an invaluable role in developing disaster plans for their organizations because they are well-versed on the particularities of the physical building and the critical equipment inside such as the plumbing, electricity, air vents and more. Oftentimes when organizations are in a position to cut funding, they will consolidate the job duties of several people into one that carries a myriad of responsibilities, including disaster planning. This leads to organizations being ill-prepared for disasters, such as a tornado or hurricane, because the person in charge of creating the emergency response plan is stretched too thin and does not have adequate resources to develop and carry out those plans.

Ensuring these teams are equipped with the funding and manpower they need to carry out their roles and responsibilities can help your organization continue to serve your company and community during times of critical need.

Compliance

Facility managers often carry the responsibility of ensuring their company’s physical structure and its systems remain compliant. However, compliance must be viewed proactively rather than reactively when it comes to evaluating risks. During budgeting season when an organization’s financial picture is looking bleak, leadership teams may consider cutting back in this area. This not only poses safety concerns for the staff who work in or use these facilities, but it can also put the company in a position to spend even more money down the road to address a potential issue.

Instead, your facility management teams should be well-equipped to address any compliance matters before they become a risk. Searching for and evaluating healthcare facility compliance risks is like noticing there’s no tread on your tires before getting behind the wheel to drive. You know the risks that come with driving on bald tires, and you don’t need a police officer to pull you over to tell you it’s time to get replacements. But if you opt to defer buying new tires and your old tires end up causing a crash, you are now stuck having to pay for new tires as well as any additional repairs to your vehicle. Replacing the tires beforehand would have been much more cost-effective to begin with, and the same is true for facility compliance concerns.

Safety

Safety is a critical pillar of any disaster plan, but it’s also top of mind for facility managers during day-to-day operations. Compliance and safety go hand-in-hand – they should be integrated with one another to ensure teams have the resources they need to assess risks, including reducing ligature points, potential weapons for those who are at risk for self-harm and more. Facility managers are the true experts in this area and can provide leadership teams with valuable insight during the budgeting process as to why certain resources or procedures are in place and why they should not be scaled back.

It’s understood that creating safety plans and monitoring facilities for compliance and safety risks do come with a cost. However, investing in preventive work pales in comparison to having to address it reactively.

Organizations large and small are being stretched thin this year. While cutting back on spending is a necessary step for many, executives must understand the long-term implications that could come from scaling back their facility management team’s resources as a way to find short-term reprieve.

About the Author

Scott Cormier is the Vice President of Emergency Management, Environment of Care (EOC) and Safety at Medxcel, specializing in facilities management, safety, environment of care, and emergency management and provides healthcare service support products and drives in-house capabilities, savings, and efficiencies for healthcare organizations that, in turn, improve the overall healing environment for patients and staff. Cormier leads the development and implementation of emergency management, general safety and accident-prevention programs for the national network of hospitals that Medxcel serves.