Get Ready For National Safety Month - "Celebrating Safe Communities"

Not only do companies need to think of employee welfare in terms of smoking cessation programs, retirement planning and healthy living, companies also need to think of employees becoming victims of crime. Reducing crime to employees and customers reduces risks to an organization’s bottom line. End Quote

Choosing The Right Self-Defense Program Is No Accident - Encourage Your Organization To Make Safety A Priority

(1888PressRelease) June 01, 2007 - This year’s weekly themes throughout June include:

- Week 1: Workplace Safety
- Week 2: Driving
- Week 3: Emergency Preparedness
- Week 4: Home & Community

Not only do companies need to think of employee welfare in terms of smoking cessation programs, retirement planning and healthy living, companies also need to think of employees becoming victims of crime. Reducing crime to employees and customers reduces risks to an organization’s bottom line.

“Business owners have to take responsibility for employees and customers’ safety,” notes Kimberly Elliott, CEO of Executive Defense Technology/Safety Training Systems. “By being concerned about crime, employers show that they care about their employees and want to see them at work the next day"

Companies that have employees or customers who are victims of crime (at home, about town or on the job) stand to lose money in several ways, Elliott says. From lost workdays, increased insurance costs and worker's compensation payouts, to fines and lawsuits, companies that don’t take the extra step to make sure people are safe will end up losing in the long run. “Companies need to be more proactive rather than waiting for something to happen,” she notes.

Training helps to prevent injury, claims against employers and time away from work as well as costly verdicts against employers that have ignored these issues. Training also helps to control risk management and reduce insurance costs.

“Court case after court case show that businesses are held liable for an employee or customer being victims of a crime on their premises if those businesses did not show concern for that possibility,” she says. By offering safety-training seminars, a business can show it did all it could.

Organizations realize that employees who travel alone on company business, walk through parking garages to get to their cars, leave the business with money to deposit or work late are all susceptible to crime. From burglary to rape to murder, employees and customers can be victims of a variety of crimes. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, murder is the number one cause of death on the job. Elliott notes that by education, training and planning, employees can minimize their risks to crime.

Simple procedures can save lives. From moving the desk in the office so the employee isn’t trapped when someone walks in the door to issuing chemical devices for defense to leaving the office together to walk to the car—all are easy and inexpensive tools to minimize becoming a victim.

Examples of organizations that should assist their employees with crime awareness and safety seminars are health care workers (nurses, mental health personnel, home health employees), hotels, real estate agents, stock brokerage firms, attorneys, shift workers, school employees and any retail establishment that is visited by customers.

Elliott says she recently worked with an area homebuilder who had display homes throughout the region staffed by one lone worker, meeting and mingling with strangers all day long. By providing simple tools on how to escape, how to fight or how to cooperate, Elliott and her employees who are all experienced in law enforcement hope to minimize employees’ risk to crime. “If we are not taught how to reduce our chances of becoming victims, then we become easy targets. The honest truth is we don’t take action because we think that it couldn’t happen to us or our business.

Unfortunately, it usually takes a crime to happen before a company and its employees wake up,” she notes. “Knowledge is power and when we empower ourselves, we greatly reduce the odds of becoming targets.”

About the author:

CEO Kimberly Elliott of Executive Defense Technology is an author, health care advocate and pharmaceutical sales representative. Program trainers are all law enforcement personal with 120 years of combined experience.

Corporate and group courses can be scheduled

by visiting www.safetytrainingsystems.net
or by calling 314-894-1148 today.

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