Can a Forklift Safety System Save Your Company’s Reputation After an Accident?

A forklift safety system is the solution everyone turns to when a forklift accident occurs. That’s because if the distribution center, manufacturing facility or warehouse experiences a severe injury or fatality due to a forklift accident, there’s more than OSHA fines and audits that will cost your company money. It will also cost your company’s reputation. The ramifications last longer and costs associated with it can remain for months or even years.

The Cost of Bad Press

As you may have read several times, we report on forklift accidents as they show up in the OSHA reports, online newspapers and other online sources. We even try to help you avoid bad press by discussing the importance of getting a forklift safety system now, especially if you haven’t experienced an accident. But there is a cost for bad press.

Negative Associations with Your Company Name

You can be sure it will make the local newspaper. However, the local newspaper is not longer the print run that you buy at the newspaper stand, it’s now online…permanently. It just doesn’t stop there, it can be referenced in other articles, with links that point directly to the newspaper article that reported on the accident. If you had more than one accident, the article will reference it and another link to the previous article will be included. It doesn’t matter if the accident was ten years ago, it’s a reference point.

Customers Search Online

Regardless how big or small your organization is, potential customers will search online if they are considering using your services. If negative articles appear online, your potential customer will take that into consideration as their brand will be associated with your company. Does it matter to them? Can it affect their brand’s reputation? These are considerations.

Hiring Takes a Hit

The industrial industry has already experienced the challenges of hiring new employees. Bad press will damage your credibility with hiring managers, employment services, temp agencies, college admissions and more. Potential workers will certainly weigh the risk of working for your company, even if it’s two minutes from their home. The convenience won’t be worth the risk of getting hurt or more.

Current Staff of Workers

When a co-worker gets hurt or faces death, internally, feelings of doubt and fear come to the surface. Can they trust their employer? Why didn’t they purchase a forklift safety system before? Why did my employer wait until an accident occurred? Good questions that you have to be ready to answer. And ‘no budget’ won’t be the answer they want to hear.

If that worker leaves your company, they may write a review on Glassdoor. Certainly, other potential workers can and do read Glassdoor which in turn will learn of the accident and how it was handled internally.

Getting an Article Removed from the Internet

It’s very difficult to get a negative article removed from Google search. These costs can be substantial and, in the end, it’s no guarantee. Costs associated with attempting to get an article removed means hiring a reputation management company, hiring an attorney, contacting the newspaper and contacting Google. There are many reputation management companies out there, you will need to decide which one is the best fit for the situation.

Avoiding the Bad Press

Now that you’re all stressed out with other direct and indirect costs from the forklift accident, why not avoid the risk of bad press altogether by simply getting the SIERA.AI S3 forklift safety system. The S3 Pedestrian Detection System identifies between a person and object, while the S3 Slow to a Safe Stop overrides the driver, slows down and comes to a complete stop. If these forklift safety systems exist at an affordable investment point, then why wait?

Contact us at sales@siera.ai and get the good press you want.