The number twenty-five is a timestamp of great importance in the history books. It can be found all across various fields, from religious texts to legal documents – even though its meaning may differ depending on whom you ask!
On a more relevant note, on the 1st of July 2020, amidst the chaos of the emerging pandemic the Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Act 2019 inserted a criminal offense of workplace manslaughter into the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004. A change that includes not only much higher monetary charges, but also a sentence of up to Twenty Five years in jail for offenders.
Some experts believe that the average amount of time that it takes to establish a successful and profitable business ranges from 7 to 10 years. According to Australian Bureau of Statistics more than 60% of small businesses stop operating within as little as 3 to 5 years of their set-up, with a further 37% closing down within the next short number of years – which leads to a total of 97% of failure – and only a 3% success rate amongst Australian business owners. These numbers have come from research conducted prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has decimated well established family operations that were simply not able to operate for close to two consecutive years.
What would you do if your business was put on the front of a newspaper for an incident that took place in it?
The business that you put your heart and soul into, prioritised over friends and family and the one where you worked all hours of the night, even on weekends and public holidays just to make it to the lucky 3% that actually made it through? Imagine waking up one day to find yourself confined in a little jail cell, inevitably losing everything that you’ve ever worked towards. How would this make you feel?
It’s not an easy thought to process. Yet, the impact should be thought provoking! Because you would be thinking of just three wishful words – “If only I”.
The chance of it happening to you are statistically low, and the chance of it happening to you because someone lost their life at your workplace is even lower. But unfortunately sometimes these things do happen….
The first time an Australian company was prosecuted and convicted with manslaughter took place on the 11th of June, 2020 after an incident in their business led to the death of a worker. The worker had lost his life in a way that was by all accounts completely avoidable and preventable. He was crushed between a reversing forklift and a truck and sustained a large number of critical injuries. His fate was sealed by a gruesome degree of neglect and disregard shown by two business owners who were well aware of the risks to their workers and did nothing to prevent it.
On the other side of neglect, there are families who will never get to see their loved ones again. And perhaps the easiest way to bring it home and hit the nail of understanding on the head is by seeing things as they are – we all have relatives, friends and loved ones that work in a wide variety of workplaces. Some in hospitals, some in construction, some in manufacturing, some in defence or public services and so on. The employees of today face many risks and hazards at work, such as being exposed to the perils that come with doing one’s job. Each time a hazard gets neglected by their employers, the likelihood of someone being affected grows through prolonged exposure, aggravation or spread… And the more companies neglect their risks the more grieving families and prosecutions we will keep seeing – both are avoidable.
As consultants , Kynection aims to help organisations prevent near-misses, incidents, injuries and fatalities. We help them build systems that will ensure that negligence simply does not occur in their workplace.
By eliminating unnecessary steps and handling of paperwork or redundant operations – we generate more time for our customers. And through digital inspection forms, non-conformity management tools, auditing tools, corrective and preventive actions protocols, SWMS, JSEA’s, SOP’s, risk assessments, incident reports, meeting minutes and forced workflows we ensure that communication, and control of risks can be undertaken easily and without delays.
We educate our customers on the wide variety of controls, tools and resources that will make not just their operation, but also our community as a whole better and safer.
We don’t judge the absence of processes, skills or knowledge. We don’t blame organisations for struggling to keep up with more and more requirements – because we understand how hard it is to keep your business afloat. Instead, we provide our customers with ONE SYSTEM to make it easier!
KIM by Kynection is one interface for your team and was designed to be the one-stop shop for everything your business needs to succeed in the race of health, safety, longevity and excellence.
KIM is the queen of human resources systems. KIM makes safety and compliance easy, accessible and transparent. KIM is an expert when it comes to workplace communication. It is a unique online quoting system and a risk management tool that gets you on top of your quality objectives and allows you to record and share information, action and assign outstanding items, train and upskill your staff, monitor and control protective gear and ensure the timely maintenance of tools and equipment.
In addition KIM is a total quality management (TQM) guru, that will make the whole range of governance chores as smooth as butter – Sales, Payroll, HR, Assets, Projects, Environment, CoR & Finance.. KIM has it all!
Call us now to book in a free demo and see how KIM can simplify your business operations!