The Benefits of Managing your Safety Program with Digital Tools
Managing a site's safety program can be a daunting task. Keeping up to date with inspections or audits, documenting incidents and hazards, reviewing current policies for potential updates, managing employee safety training records, and managing site-specific processes can be stressful, mainly if managed by paper or outdated manual spreadsheets. Moving online to manage a site's safety program has massive benefits and should be considered to take your safety program to the next level.
Standardization
Creating consistency across the company's organization is a benefit. When all sites report and manage documents and processes with the same workflow, it creates standardization across the board that keeps all sites on the same page. If something is updated, everyone's process gets updated the same way because everyone uses the same platform. Having all sites use the same platform is a benefit of corporate roles as well. Having everything in one place is a way to eliminate time-wasting tasks such as asking a site how they conform to a specific corporate policy.
Increase Productivity
When you have a platform that works with you, it can eliminate time-wasting tasks. If you work in an outdated spreadsheet and have a log of all your safety issues and corrective actions found via inspections, incidents, etc., you must add who is responsible for fixing the issue and then manually email them individually for updates. This process is time-consuming and can be eliminated with an online platform that automatically emails that person responsible for updates with one click of a button. That responsible person can go into the issue on the platform & correct it without any assistance from you. I found that a large chunk of my time was following up with others to close open items. When you digitize, the platform enhances your productivity by eliminating time-wasting processes and almost acts as if you had an administrative assistant!
Automatically Create Trends to Drive Improvements
Creating trends from your site's data is the best way to evaluate the next steps to improve the safety program. Data drives decisions, but you need to create long-term trends to see what the data is revealing. Creating trends is nearly impossible using paper forms and is time-consuming at that. An online platform has dashboards where trends and figures are automatically produced for you. Having accurate graphs and charts can help inform others on your organization's safety issues. This will create buy-in from top management and persuade them to approve of next steps to improve the safety program. Not only will trends be analyzed automatically, but you eliminate hours spent sorting through data or creating graphs to find these trends.
My Recommendation
My recommended tool for managing your site's safety program is Frontline Data Solutions. I love how Frontline Data Solution's platforms are completely customizable and easy to use. If you have not checked them out before, they are a great platform that many companies trust to manage their safety program. Their Management of Change Software is a game-changer that allows the company to create custom checklists, quickly review and approve equipment and organizational changes, and track assets. Your productivity will increase through automatic email notifications to users, and your management of change process will thrive in their web-based system. Check them out by clicking this link! Please note this blog was sponsored by Frontline Data Solutions, and when you sign up for a demo with Frontline Data Solutions, I receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!