After a couple of days sweeping the floors and watching the tradesmen work, It was assumed that it would be a matter of common sense that that the he would be able to use a hand grinder. He was quickly shown how to cut the bolt heads of scrap steel laying on the floor and told to go for it.

During this task the worker realised that his nylon trousers under his old overalls were on fire. The sparks off the grinding had entered through a hole in the old overalls he had been issued.

The upshot of this incident was that there was much panic and as a result of the pants burning the nylon seared onto his shin and knee.  The injury resulted in a trip to the doctor a burnt leg and he was off the job for 3 days.

When I discussed the incident with the business owner, I asked him, why did it happen and what was the cost to the business?

His answer was that there was no real training he had not been told of the hazards or dangers and he had no idea of the cost. We then identified the contributed cost factors and put a cost to them. The owners estimated cost was in his words, a couple of hundred dolls. Surprise, surprise when the final amount was identified from all the contributing factors it was over $1200 00 and all for assuming that it was common sense.

The point of this example is not only the importance of training and in this case it would have only taken 10- 15 minutes of training with a competent employee, it also raises the importance of providing the correct personnel protective equipment (PPE) as well the information of how to use it.

For example providing non static PPE to service station attendants and or non-combustible or fire retardant overalls to welders, especially those who have to work under cars.Its food for thought, especially when you consider the final cost if something goes wrong.