While we all want our employees to be safe in the workplace, the fact is there were close to 3 million reports of nonfatal injuries reported to OSHA last year. Over 900,000 cases involved days away from work. FEMA reports that in 2011 there were 85,400 non-residential fires in the U.S. that caused 80 deaths and 1,100 injuries. The dollar loss from these fires amounted to $2,435,700,000.
Typically owners of businesses like CNC machine shops put off thinking about the future of their company once they’re ready to retire, move on to a new challenge, or something unexpected happens. Let’s face it: few of us like to think about these things. We own our business because we like what we’re doing, we enjoy being our own boss, and we don’t want our success to depend on anyone else. We’d much rather focus on resolving today’s challenges, planning for growth and investing in new technology.
When Gosiger sponsored the first Executive Roundtable Discussions last February with a dozen shop owners and managers in southeast Ohio, the three top of mind issues that came up were: (1) Finding and keeping good employees; (2) Pricing to be both competitive and profitable; (3) The desire for help from suppliers when tackling difficult problems.