Calculator Inputs
Example Data Table
| Input | Example |
|---|---|
| Incidents | 6 |
| Direct cost / incident | USD 4,200 |
| Indirect multiplier | 2.3 |
| Days lost / incident | 4 |
| Loaded hourly rate | USD 28 |
| Replacement hours / incident | 14 |
| Overtime premium | 35% |
| Training cost / incident | USD 180 |
| Admin hours / incident | 3.5 |
Quick Guidance
- Start with incidents and direct cost accuracy.
- Use the multiplier to capture hidden impacts.
- Enable downtime and replacement for labor-heavy work.
- Use prevention ROI for business-case discussions.
Formula Used
Direct Costs
Direct = Incidents × Direct Cost per Incident
Indirect Costs (Multiplier Model)
Indirect = Direct × (Multiplier − 1). Total (Direct+Indirect) = Direct × Multiplier.
Lost Time / Downtime
Lost Time = Incidents × Days Lost × Hours/Day × Loaded Rate × Productivity%.
Replacement / Overtime
Replacement = Incidents × Replacement Hours × Loaded Rate × (1 + Overtime Premium%).
Training & Onboarding
Training = Incidents × Training Cost per Incident.
Admin & Investigation
Admin = Incidents × Admin Hours × Loaded Rate.
Penalty Estimate
Penalty = Σ(Citation Count × Fine per Citation) by category.
Prevention Scenario
Savings = Total Impact × Reduction%. Net Benefit = Savings − Investment.
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter your incident count for the chosen reporting period.
- Estimate direct cost per incident from claims and invoices.
- Set an indirect multiplier to reflect hidden organizational costs.
- Fill downtime and labor fields if time loss affects output.
- Optionally add citation counts and typical fine amounts.
- Choose prevention investment and expected reduction for ROI.
- Press Submit to view results above the form.
- Use CSV or PDF exports to share the summary.
Baseline Incident Profile
Start by aligning the reporting period with your internal dashboard. For an annual view, enter workforce size, hours worked, recordable cases, and DART cases. If your site logged 240,000 hours with 6 recordables and 2 DART cases, TRIR is 5.00 and DART rate is 1.67 using the 200,000-hour normalization.
Direct and Indirect Costs
Direct costs represent invoices you can trace: medical treatment, repairs, and immediate services. With 6 incidents at 4,200 each, direct impact equals 25,200. Indirect costs capture supervision time, schedule disruption, rework, and customer delays. Using a 2.3 multiplier, indirect adds 32,760, bringing combined direct-plus-indirect impact to 57,960.
Downtime and Labor Impact
Lost time converts days away into labor dollars. With 4 lost days per incident, 8 hours per day, a 28 loaded hourly rate, and 80% productivity loss, downtime equals 43,008. Replacement effort adds another layer. If backfill requires 14 hours per incident and overtime carries a 35% premium, replacement cost is 31,752. Administrative investigation time, at 3.5 hours per incident, adds 588 more.
Penalty and Compliance Exposure
When citations occur, penalties can dominate totals. A single serious citation at 14,500 can exceed training budgets for many small facilities. This tool lets you model categories separately—serious, other-than-serious, willful, and repeat—so you can stress-test financial resilience without overstating enforcement outcomes.
Prevention Scenario Benchmarking
Use prevention investment as a decision variable, not a fixed number. If the total impact is 148,888 and you expect a 20% reduction, expected savings are 29,778. Subtract the investment to estimate net benefit, then evaluate ROI and payback. A useful practice is to compare cost per incident to your insurance deductible and to the cost of one full-time safety role. Even a 10% reduction in a high-cost environment can fund controls, training refreshers, and audits. Track changes in indirect multiplier as processes stabilize and supervision time drops. Document assumptions, align actions with leading indicators and budgets. Use the CSV export to review trends, then revisit targets after audits, changes, and retraining.
FAQs
What should I use for the indirect multiplier?
Choose a value that reflects hidden disruption beyond invoices. Many teams start between 1.5 and 4.0, then tune it using historical overtime, rework, supervision time, and customer impacts. Keep it consistent across periods for trend comparisons.
How do I estimate the loaded hourly rate?
Use the fully burdened labor cost: base wage plus benefits, payroll taxes, and typical allowances. If rates vary by role, use a weighted average for affected departments, or run scenarios with low, mid, and high rates to bracket outcomes.
Why are penalties optional in the calculation?
Penalties depend on inspection outcomes and citation categories, so they are uncertain. By toggling the estimate, you can see operational impact alone, then add compliance exposure for stress testing, budgeting reserves, or communicating potential downside to leadership.
Can I use this for monthly or quarterly reviews?
Yes. Change the reporting period label and enter incidents, costs, and hours for that same interval. The tool does not auto-scale values; it simply computes totals based on what you provide, letting your team compare periods consistently.
How does productivity loss percent affect downtime cost?
It scales the value of lost hours. Use 100% when work is not recoverable, and lower values when output can be caught up later, redistributed, or absorbed. This helps model different operations, like continuous production versus flexible office work.
How should I interpret ROI and payback results?
ROI compares net benefit to investment, using your expected reduction assumption. Payback estimates how many months of expected savings are needed to recover the investment. If savings are uncertain, run multiple reduction percentages to see best, expected, and conservative cases.