If you own a small business (up to 500 employees) and think safety is not important you should read Collen DiBaise’s article How to Protect Employees From Injury for Small Business.  DiBaise points out that OSHA does marshal its small-business information into one central place. Its eTools section provides downloadable files with useful information on protecting your workplace from specific threats, such as anthrax, lead and even Legionnaires’ disease. The NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business), which has an alliance with OSHA, further attempts to whittle down the volumes of information, providing a page with its vote for best OSHA links.
Another place to turn is OSHA itself. The agency provides safety and health training at education centers across the country; to find a site near you click here. You can also request a free consultation at your workplace with an OSHA-trained professional through the agency’s Consultation Program. The service is free, but you need to commit to correcting any serious job safety and health hazards that are found. And finally, to read about how other small businesses are keeping their workplaces safe, read about OSHA’s “Small Business Successes.” Examples include a Vermont coffee roaster that installed special lifting devices to reduce back injuries and a family-owned microbrewery that informs employees about safety procedures at paid-for, after-hours meetings with catered meals.

Safety does matter.  Remember for an injury that cost a company (OSHA average) $25,000, a company needs to sell about and additional $833,000 (at 3% profit margin) to equal that cost.