In tree care, safety is often treated like overhead. Necessary. Required. Important, sure – but expensive.

Harnesses, helmets, training days, downtime for tailboards, safety managers, documentation. When you’re running multiple crews and watching fuel, labor and equipment costs climb, it can be tempting to view safety as something that slows production.

I used to think about it in two separate buckets: production and protection. Experience taught me that’s the wrong framework.

A few years ago, we had a near miss that could have gone very differently. No hospitalization. No major claim. On paper, it was minor.

But what hit me wasn’t the incident; it was the realization that production pressure had subtly crept into decision-making with the team. Nothing intentional. Just the quiet voice of, “Let’s keep moving.”

That’s when safety either becomes culture – or it becomes a slogan.

Here’s what I’ve learned; safety is not the cost of doing business. It is the profit strategy.

When crews feel rushed, incidents go up. When incidents go up, so do insurance costs, downtime, equipment damage, turnover and lost reputation. One serious injury can wipe out the margin from dozens of successful jobs.

On the flip side, when safety becomes nonnegotiable and leadership consistently reinforces it, something interesting happens.

• Workers’ comp stabilizes.
• Equipment lasts longer.
• Crews communicate better.
• Turnover drops.
• Productivity improves – sustainably.

The key word is sustainably.

In our company, we made a few simple shifts to help ingrain safety in our culture.

• We track teachable moments as seriously as recordables.
• Supervisors are evaluated on safety metrics, not just revenue.
• Stopping a job for safety never costs someone credibility.

Did production dip slightly at first? Yes.

Did our overall performance improve over time? Absolutely. Because when people know leadership values their well-being more than the schedule, trust goes up. And trust drives execution.

The hidden cost in this industry isn’t PPE or training days. It’s the assumption that toughness equals safety.

Tree care attracts gritty people. But grit without guardrails becomes risk. The longer someone works without incident, the easier it is to believe the rules are for “other crews.”

Leadership sets the tone. If a foreman believes finishing fast earns praise, that’s what they optimize for. If they believe sending everyone home whole earns praise, that’s what they’ll protect.

At scale, safety and profit are not competing priorities. They are aligned incentives.

A company that injures people eventually pays for it – financially and culturally. A company that protects people builds margin that lasts. And in this business, longevity is the real win.

Evan Amundson, CTSP, is the chief operations officer at Carr’s Tree Service, a 30-year TCIA member company based in Ottertail, Minnesota.