How to Avoid Employee and Customer Safety Risks and Litigation Using Employee, Customer and Risk Surveys

A potentially costly and embarrassing risk that many organizations face is employee and customer safety risk. Some of the many types and causes of safety risks employees and customers face include:


• Risks from using equipment/products that may be unsafe

• Inappropriate use of equipment/products

• Lacking training in how to properly use equipment/products

• Inattention to safety practices while using equipment/products

• Unanticipated equipment/product failure

• Inadequate safety rules/precautions in the workplace

• Accidents due to insufficient testing to identify risk-safety products/situations

• Unauthorized or uncertified people using equipment/products

• Employees or customers entering off-limit areas

• Designing, producing and selling products with safety problems/defects

• Insufficient caution labeling/communications

• Company cultures and managers that focus on profit, meeting schedules, etc. at the expense of employee and/or customer safety

• Employee or customer sabotage causing safety risks

Using risk surveys, employee surveys and customer surveys to identify safety risks:

Safety risks can cause serious injuries and/or death to a single individual or to various sized groups of employees, customers or other groups. Your company can be held liable for injuries or death if there is unintentional or intentional negligence regarding safety risk avoidance. The dollar and reputational cost of safety problems can be very costly in the areas of litigation cost, increased insurance rates, reputational costs resulting in lost current and future business, possible business disruption, decreased employee satisfaction and engagement and other negative impact.

One of the most important things business leaders can do to address safety risks to employees, customers and other groups is to include safety as a top priority of your company. For companies that embrace employee and customer safety, Quantisoft offers three types of surveys that identify safety risks and provide possible solutions for mitigating safety risks:

• Business risk surveys / risk assessment surveys

• Employee satisfaction surveys / employee engagement surveys / employee opinion surveys

• Customer satisfaction surveys / customer opinion surveys

How each type of risk survey, employee survey and customer survey identifies safety risks and provides information, suggestions and insight for avoiding and mitigating safety risks:

• Business risk survey / risk assessment survey – Risk surveys are typically sent to senior and middle managers, and sometimes also to Board members and lower level managers and supervisors. One or more risk survey questions ask survey recipients to identify safety risks and to assess / quantify the potential likelihood and impact of the safety risks. Risk surveys often identify safety risks not previously considered. Business risk surveys also enable businesses to list and rank safety risks across the organization and by department and location.

• Employee satisfaction survey / employee engagement survey / employee opinion survey – For any company or other type of organization that has potential employee or customer safety risks, employee surveys include questions that ask all employees to identify potential safety risks and to provide comments and suggestions about how to avoid and mitigate the safety risks for the organization overall and by location and department.

• Customer satisfaction survey / customer opinion survey – For any company that is concerned about the safety of their products, store environment or any other aspect of safety, customer surveys are a highly effective way to gather information and perceptions from customers about various aspects of safety. Customer survey questions are tailored to gather needed feedback without leading customers to the conclusion that there are safety risks. Customers are able to share their experiences and make suggestions to reduce or eliminate safety risks.