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Workplace Safety: 3 Concrete Reasons Why You Should Invest In Health, Safety & Wellbeing

Written by Jessica Strick | May 30, 2025 8:02:23 AM

Picture this: you’re the esteemed leader of a thriving new business, in an exciting early growth phase. You’re entering new markets, taking on new clients like never before, and hiring recruits to help bulk out the team. The birds are chirping and your LinkedIn following is growing, thanks to a host of articles naming you in their ‘Top 10 Entrepreneurs To Watch This Year”, or for the young and naïve, the "30 Under 30" list.

But somehow, somewhere along the way, things change. You find yourself reading a report about the fifth incident in a string of unfortunate events related to forklifts. Your dwindling number of available drivers are now in short supply, and your orders are pushed back. Everything’s getting behind schedule, and there’s clearly a problem with your operations, which somehow needs to be identified, pronto. 

Oh, and Susan from marketing quit out of the blue, citing poor mental health as her reason. A week later, she’s blasted your company with lengthy digital posts; exposing a shocking work culture that puts mental health on the back burner. As per the internet, there now exists (forever) a damning, dire warning on GlassDoor (and LinkedIn!) to anyone thinking about applying for a job.

Also, Jim, your cheerful accounts manager, slipped on an unknown substance in the kitchen and severely fractured his jaw. Unable to talk, he’s out of full-time work for at least four weeks while his face heals. You’re left stranded, with mounting ACC costs and the impending, inevitable levy increase that will hit you at the end of the year.

Need I go on?

Yes.

Yes, I will.

The examples of workplace issues are endless, and the potential consequences of neglected health, safety and wellbeing can extend far beyond a single, isolated incident. 

Whether a business is new, established, or even just somewhere in-between, addressing and investing in health and safety isn't necessarily near the top of their priority list. Not only is it difficult for leaders and managers to predict potentially devastating outcomes of workplace health and safety gone wrong, but it also feels like an exhausting amount of pessimistic effort, far better swept under the proverbial rug.

However, as illustrated above, health, safety and wellbeing encompass that vast area of ultimate importance to a business; that is human activity and productivity. 

If your business is a vehicle and your workforce the driver, then health, safety and wellbeing is the lubrication that keeps the car from a total breakdown. You would check your oil before a long road trip, right?

Health, safety and wellbeing might be overlooked, but its bond to productivity is a marriage so integral that it should be at the very starting line of any organisational roadmap, or vision (or whatever other buzzword you see apt to name your list of priorities).

Need more convincing?