Business owner? Here's how road safety affects your bottom line
We've all experienced the frustration of car trouble or road accidents eating into our time and productivity. It's not just stressful, but costly too - particularly for employers. Prioritising road safety makes business sense - and makes you a conscientious leader too.
July 2nd to 6th marks Corporate Wellness Week - a helpful reminder to employers that road safety is everyone's shared responsibility. "While road safety in SA is a major cause for concern, progress can be made when both employers and employees pledge that road safety starts with them," says Discovery Insure CEO, Anton Ossip.
"Protecting your employees when they're behind the wheel is not just your legal responsibility and moral obligation - it's in everyone's best interest."
Road safety affects employers in multiple ways
Discovery Insure data indicates that bad driving habits increase fuel consumption by 15% - a significant amount, given the rising costs of fuel. In addition, 77% of employees who drive for work admit to exceeding the speed limit due to work pressure.
It's not just poor driving behaviours that can bite into your business' budget. Fleet News also reports that many businesses only count downtime as "the hours and minutes a business vehicle is on the ramp, in the repair shop. But they actually need to consider every minute that vehicle is off the road, because it has a vast impact on the cost implications."
Employee downtime is another important consideration. Absenteeism due to driver injury or trauma, retrieving insurance information from third parties, reporting accidents to the relevant authorities and scheduling vehicle repairs can take hours away from your normal business activities.
Until both the vehicle and drivers are back on the road, the cost of downtime grows both in terms of hard costs (covering maintenance fees) and soft costs (from your business missing a vehicle and potentially a worker).
The cost implications of road accidents to your business
It goes without saying that having one of your staff members hurt or killed in a motor-vehicle accident can be shattering to their family and their dependants.
Accidents can also have a number of financial implications for you, including the cost of replacing a worker; damage to or replacement of the vehicle; the time and effort spent investigating the incident; and loss of productivity. In addition, an incident can negatively impact your company's brand and reputation, as well as employee morale.
So what's an employer to do? Be a leader your people trust by putting their safety first - and then rest assured that your approach makes business sense.
Need practical guidelines? Read these 10 steps employers can take to reduce risk and encourage road safety.
Want help in building a healthy, high-performing business?
Discovery Business Insurance is different to traditional insurance companies in that we look at your business holistically, helping you to become a better and high performing business that can manage its risks.
We use incentive-based insurance principles to encourage behaviour change that reduces insurance risks, and results in savings for the insurer. These savings are then shared with clients to further incentivise behaviour change.
Discovery Insure's ImpactAlert sends help when you need it most
Wish you had the technology to call for help when you most need it? Discovery Insure's ImpactAlert feature can detect when you've been in an accident. If we can't get hold of you immediately, we'll send emergency assistance to your location, while our Vehicle panic button can be used to alert emergency services when you're in your car and need help.
Rely on Discovery Insure when it counts: Find out more about this benefit here.
Bigger and better rewards for driving well
In 2018, Vitality drive Active Rewards is getting bigger and better! You can now get a coffee, smoothie, popcorn, airtime or discounted car wash every week for 100 kilometres of consecutive event-free driving.
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