Please note: the following article was developed for educational purposes only and covers a wide variety of general workplace safety concerns and considerations, some not relevant to workers' compensation coverage.
When your small business clients are growing, it's worth celebrating. They've gone from a handful of employees who could all fit around one table to a team of 30, 40, or 50 people. But here's something many business owners don't expect: the very success that's driving their growth could be quietly challenging the safety culture that helped get them there.
It's a paradox that catches many small business owners off guard. According to research from the Institute for Work & Health, workers in their first month on the job have more than three times the risk for a lost-time injury compared to workers with more than one year on the job. When clients are hiring rapidly to keep up with growth, they're constantly adding new workers who face elevated injury risks. Meanwhile, the informal safety approaches that worked perfectly for 10 employees can become liabilities at 50.
Pie Insurance's 2025 Employee Voice on Workplace Safety Report reveals a telling pattern: smaller businesses with just a handful of employees tend to show lower hesitation rates when it comes to reporting safety concerns. But as businesses grow into larger teams, reported fear and communication barriers increase. The data suggests that as companies scale, communication barriers might inadvertently grow right alongside headcount.
When a business owner is running a company with 10 employees, everyone knows everyone. If someone sees an unsafe situation, they speak up. If there's a safety concern, it gets addressed over lunch or during the morning coffee. That's an informal safety culture at work, and it can be incredibly effective.
But something shifts as businesses cross certain thresholds. Pie Insurance’s 2025 Employee Voice report found that roughly one in six workers hesitate to report safety concerns. Why? The top reasons are fear of retaliation, not wanting to seem difficult, and believing nothing would be done anyway. These aren't just numbers on a page. They're real employees at your clients' companies who see problems but stay silent.
Here's what often happens: commercial drivers at larger organizations express particularly high concern about pressure to rush. When a business is small, if a driver feels pressured, they can walk into the owner's office and have a conversation. When they've grown to multiple locations or shifts, that direct line disappears unless it's intentionally rebuilt with formal systems.
The confidence gap between employers and employees may widen as organizational layers increase. The research shows a significant disconnect: most employers feel confident in their ability to address mental health issues, but far fewer employees share that confidence. The same pattern appears with safety protocols. About half of employers report having protocols, but only about a third of employees actually observe them in practice. It's not that business owners don't care. It's that the message isn't getting through the way it used to.
The transformation isn't just about numbers. It's about the breakdown of informal connections that once held safety culture together. When a team grows beyond a certain size, several critical challenges emerge:
Knowledge gaps can develop quickly. According to Pie Insurance’s Employee Voice report, nearly half of employees might not clearly understand how to report injuries, and about two thirds don't know the workers' compensation process. What a business owner could explain in person to each of their first 10 hires now needs to be documented, trained, and reinforced across dozens of people.
Formal protocols can become essential. What worked informally with 5 people simply doesn't scale to 50. Business owners can't rely on everyone "just knowing" the safety procedures when new faces join every month. OSHA research indicates that organizations benefit significantly from worker participation in safety programs, but implementing effective worker participation becomes more challenging as organizations grow. Employers who involve workers in their safety programs can see reduced injury and illness rates, lower workers' compensation costs, and improved morale.
Time pressure can intensify across the organization. The data shows that about two in five employees feel pressure to work through unsafe conditions to meet deadlines. As businesses scale and customer demands increase, this pressure can become more pronounced unless owners actively work to prevent it.
Communication can become layered and complex. Perhaps most striking, nearly as many employees want more participation in safety decisions as want additional training. That tells us something important: employees recognize something valuable has been lost as companies have grown. They want that seat at the table they had when the company was smaller.
There's actually research that helps explain why this happens. Studies suggest humans can maintain stable social relationships with about 150 people. Beyond this threshold, organizations require more formal structures, processes, and communication systems. What this means for safety culture is significant: personal accountability transitions to systemic accountability.
When everyone knows everyone, social pressure keeps people accountable. When businesses grow beyond those natural connection limits, they need formal systems to replace what once happened organically. The implications are real: without intentional effort, the safety culture that thrived in early days can fragment into pockets of varying safety awareness across a growing organization.
The danger zone for many businesses appears to be that 20 to 50 employee range. They've outgrown informal safety culture but haven't yet built the formal systems that larger organizations depend on. During this transition, employees might not know:
These aren't just communication problems. They're safety problems. According to Pie Insurance’s Employee Voice report, there's a significant gap between willingness to intervene and actual intervention. While most employees say they would step in if they saw an unsafe situation, far fewer report actually doing so. That gap suggests there are situational barriers that may worsen with organizational complexity.
The good news is that these challenges aren't inevitable. They're predictable, which means your clients can prepare for them. Here's what the research and data suggest can help:
Build formal communication channels before they're needed. Business owners shouldn't wait until they hit 50 employees to establish clear reporting processes. Employees surveyed emphasized wanting "active presence of admin," the ability to "ask for my opinion on some topics," and "a safe space to voice concerns." These become harder to achieve at scale without intentional systems.
Invest in structured training programs. There's a significant perception gap around training in Pie Insurance’s Employee Voice report. It's not enough for employers to believe they're providing training. They need to ensure employees are actually receiving it, understanding it, and able to apply it. This means documented programs, regular refreshers, and verification that the message is getting through.
Create multiple feedback loops. When businesses are small, feedback happens naturally. As they grow, owners need to create formal opportunities for employee input. This could include regular safety meetings, anonymous reporting systems, or safety committees that include front line workers.
Preserve personal connection where possible. Just because a business is growing doesn't mean every interaction needs to be formal. Some successful growing businesses maintain smaller team structures within the larger organization, preserving some of those connection benefits even at scale.
Monitor and measure perception gaps. Business owners shouldn't just track whether they have policies. They need to track whether employees know about them, understand them, and feel comfortable using them. The gaps between employer confidence and employee experience shown in Pie Insurance’s Employee Voice data suggest these perception checks are critical.
Partner with insurance professionals who understand growth dynamics. As an insurance agent, you've seen how other businesses have navigated this transition. You can help clients identify potential risks before they become claims and connect them with resources to build scalable safety systems. For more insights on what employees actually experience in small business workplaces, explore the full findings from Pie Insurance's Employee Voice report.
Client business growth is something to celebrate. But as Pie Insurance’s 2025 Employee Voice on Workplace Safety Report makes clear, scaling successfully means adapting safety approaches to match new realities. The informal culture that protected 10 employees won't automatically protect 50. But with intentional systems, regular communication, and genuine worker participation, growing businesses can build something even better: a safety culture that scales with their success.
The key is recognizing that this transition is coming and preparing for it before the cracks start to show. Because the ultimate goal isn't just to grow a business. It's to grow it safely, protecting both the people and the culture that got them there.
At what point does a business outgrow informal safety practices?
Communication barriers can start emerging once organizations grow beyond stable social relationship limits. For many businesses, the 20 to 50 employee range represents a critical transition point where informal practices may no longer be sufficient and formal safety systems become necessary.
Why do employees hesitate more to report safety concerns as businesses grow?
According to Pie Insurance’s 2025 Employee Voice on Workplace Safety Report, the top reasons workers hesitate include fear of retaliation or negative consequences, not wanting to seem difficult, and believing nothing would be done. As businesses add organizational layers, direct communication lines can break down without formal replacement systems.
What's the biggest safety challenge when rapidly hiring new employees?
Research from the Institute for Work & Health shows that workers in their first month on the job have more than three times the risk for a lost-time injury compared to workers with over a year of experience. When businesses are in a growth phase with frequent new hires, they're consistently maintaining a population of higher risk workers who need proper training and oversight.
How can growing businesses maintain worker participation in safety programs?
OSHA research indicates that worker participation is vital to safety program success. As organizations grow, this may require formal structures like safety committees, regular safety meetings, anonymous reporting systems, and ensuring employees have time and resources to participate in safety decisions.
What are the warning signs that a client's safety culture isn't scaling with their business?
Key indicators might include: increasing gaps between employer confidence and employee experience, employees reporting they don't know how to report concerns, rising injury rates particularly among newer employees, increasing time pressure that compromises safety, and declining participation in safety initiatives or reporting.
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Thanks for reading! This content is intended for educational purposes only, is not legal advice, and does not imply coverage under workers' comp or other insurance offered through Pie Insurance Services, Inc. Please consult an agent or attorney for any questions regarding applicability of insurance.
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