Using a courier and diminishing your chances of corporate manslaughter

Image by rodneylibraries via Flickr

Does you company have an item that needs moving or delivering regularly? Do you need to make a deposit at your bank or collect change? Delivering contracts that cannot be faxed? Tender documents that must meet a strict deadline?

Have you thought about what it costs you as a business when you get a member of your team to do it instead of booking a same day courier service?

You may be thinking “Bank/ post office not very far, get the receptionist to do it or one of the admins, they can do it…” Sure, the phone may get unprofessionally answered to your potential new customer, no biggie but you having a staff member drive their own vehicle to the bank / post office / customers office could cost you big time – corporate manslaughter anyone?

• If they have an accident, you may be liable and they may not be insured for business use.
• Expenses – 44p pence per mile, the hour and a half out of the office, the parking costs…
• What about their work? Whilst they are doing something to save you money – who is doing their job?
• What if the job over runs?

Getting it right is tough for any business, and for a one off getting a member of the team to do it once is a decision you have to make.

When it starts to happen on a regular basis, then you need to think is it actually saving you money to use a staff member and more to the point what happens and who is liable if it goes wrong.

For example when delivering a tender document, it may need to be delivered out of hours. It may need someone to wait for the bid writing team to finalise the last few touches, and a member of staff is sitting waiting to do this instead of going home. After leaving at 7pm 2 hours after their normal finishing time, they drive (a little angrily) to the office where the tender is to be submitted, they are feeling a little tired and cannot wait until their day is finished and they can go home. The deliver the document at 9pm that evening (would have been sooner but they don’t have a sat nav and wasn’t expecting to use one!) and the deadline has been met.

Well, it’s cost you 4 hours of pay so far, their mileage and now they are on their way home. The get home at 11pm (2 more hours of pay) and have their dinner, shower and bed. The next day they arrive in work tired and snappy. An accident could happen at any point whilst out driving or the next day with a tired employee and the cost could exceed far more than what a same day courier would cost.

When you are next compiling your risk assessment, have a look at how many hours additional driving your staff are doing. You could be in for a surprise.

Sarah

Same day couriers for documents, banking and many other things!

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