Many people suspect that companies often place profits at a higher priority than how they treat their workers. A recent study that was published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics analyzes data to examine the relationship between management’s earnings goals and workplace safety. Companies don’t just hire employees to do jobs and hope for the best. Firms employ financial analysts who analyze data and forecast earnings, and management often holds those earnings forecasts in high regard, doing whatever they can to ensure that their earnings numbers meet the analysts’ forecasts.

When management feels pressure to meet earnings forecasts, they, in turn, put pressure on the people who are responsible for producing the goods or services that will bring in the earnings. They tell supervisors to have their employees work harder and faster to produce as much as possible. However, employees can only work so hard and so fast before their work practices become unsafe.

Tragic injuries and deaths can occur in manufacturing, and other types of workplaces and more accidents happen when the pressure to produce is at its peak. Managers who feel pressure to meet earnings forecasts increase their workers’ workloads by urging them to work faster or to work more hours. Working faster often means cutting corners, and cutting corners often involve sacrificing safety for speed. It is not difficult to see how a person is more likely to get hurt when they are operating a machine as fast as they can than they are when they are using the same device at a slower, more steady pace. There is also a risk for overexertion when workers are working as hard and as fast as they can.

Another way in which a need for speed makes a workplace less safe is that managers may encourage employees to skip maintenance tasks, training time, and other safety-related job functions to keep on producing as much as they can during their working hours.

The research indicates that injury and job-related illness rates are higher for firms that just barely meet or exceed earnings forecasts. Companies that far exceed analysts’ forecasts have lower injury rates, and so do companies that come in well below the analysts’ forecasts. The study also analyzed union vs. non-union injury rates, and the findings indicate that injury rates at union firms are much lower than at non-union workplaces. This is likely due in part to the fact that union employees negotiate safety procedures into their contracts and they also have union representatives that the can talk to if they encounter safety issues. This is a sharp contrast to non-union workers, who may feel like they can’t report unsafe conditions or situations to their supervisors out of fear that they will be reprimanded or told to ignore the danger and keep on producing

Barrett Law PLLC:  Helping Mississippi Workplace Accident Victims Recover

If the pressure to produce more faster at your job was a contributing factor in your work-related injury, you are not alone. Many workers face pressure from profit-minded management to produce as much as possible, even if it means rushing your work along and ignoring safe work practices when taking the time to do things the safe way would slow you down. To learn more about how we could help you with a workplace accident claim, call the Mississippi Workplace Accident Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC at 1 (601) 790-1505.