What is a Safety Budget & Why to Plan for it?

During this stretch of the year, where every company is busy closing the financials of the preceding year and setting up budgets of the approaching year, every department of the company is kept in mind considering the weightage of profitability that the department holds. The experts accurately forecast and allocate a budget for all the departments.

When we talk about the safety department, every company has a different outlook, some of them are aware of the importance of the safety budget wherein some allocate the safety budget under the administrative department that is majorly limited to only a “First Aid Kit” – Safety has a lot more to do.

Budget Forecasting

Safety is an association with precaution. A precaution for a calamity, that may/ may not occur. If it does not occur then nothing better but if it does occur, then the budget of the whole company can go in for a toss, really bad.

If you are a Health, Safety & Environment Officer for your company, you know how challenging it is to plan or forecast a safety budget. Especially when you are analysing and referring to the data of your organization, and the hard truth and the reality of the hazards and accidents that your employees have gone through, is on the papers with facts and figures staring back at you.

Budget is Responsibility

Things sometimes are beyond your working reach. Taking the charge of the safety department wherein you are responsible for the safety of your people, no one will know better than you when is the right time to upgrade your safety.

But just because the company’s budget does not have much scope, even though there were certain products in your mind that you wanted to acquire for your workforce, YOU COULDN’T DO IT. That is when you realize the importance of a Proper Safety Budget.

Therefore, a safety budget should specifically be set out to allocate funds for any future improvements that may arise from recommendations made from safety monitoring activities, risk assessments and accident investigations.