Training is cheaper than getting sued

I recently had lunch with a colleague and they told me an interesting story. A business owner went to the bank to get a business loan. When asked what the loan was for, the owner said it was to pay for fines.

Long story short, the owner was being fined by Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) and he was also being sued by a former employee. The employee was injured on the job because they didn’t have the proper training to do their job. The owner did not perform their duty to provide the required Health and Safety training, WHMIS training and specific training to complete the tasks safely.

Ultimately, the bank decided not to give the owner a loan because they deemed the business owner too high risk for non-compliance.

The moral of the story, paying for training is much cheaper than getting sued or being fined; not to mention all the trickle-down effect of not providing training.